Alaska

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Spenard: Anchorage’s Entertainment and Vice District

Spenard is arguably Anchorage’s most colorful neighborhood, steeped in a history of vice with its seedy underside clearly visible to all who cared to look, or simply drive along Spenard Road, the curving thoroughfare that winds over two miles through the town’s westside. 

The Making and Unmaking of the Nation’s Northernmost Black Community

Before the establishment of Anchorage in 1915, what is today the neighborhood of Fairview was a marshy region in the greater Dena’ina Athabascan ancestral homelands that white settlers referred to as Eastchester. During the first half of the twentieth century, this area remained sparsely populated and contained a few scattered cabins, primarily hewn from nearby spruce and birch trees. However, it would become Alaska's largest Black community and a center of entertainment during the immediate postwar decades.

Project 80s and the Reshaping of Anchorage

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Alaska experienced one of North America’s greatest gold rushes. But the wealth generated during the rush did not result in an appreciably richer territory. A few decades later, the territory was among one of the poorest places in the United States; it remained so even after Alaska gained statehood in 1959. But in another unpredictable twist, a generation later, Alaska had become not only the nation’s forty-ninth state but also its richest, the result of the discovery of oil in the Arctic.

Sitka National Historical Park

The smallest national park in the state is situated about one mile from the central area of Sitka, a small city in southeastern Alaska. Although the park encompasses just 113 acres of land and water, it is Alaska’s oldest federally designated facility, having been authorized as an important Tlingit fort and battle site by the federal government in 1890. The property became a national monument in 1910 and the National Park Service has supervised the site since 1916, the year the agency was formed.

Engineering and Industry Building

The University of Alaska Anchorage opened its Engineering and Industry Building (EIB) in 2015, replacing a generation-old building that had become outdated and unable to accommodate the growing enrollment in the university's Engineering program. With over 75,000 square feet of lab and classroom space for the eleven disciplines within the college, the EIB nearly doubles the space of the former building. The EIB houses programs and courses related to arctic, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering, as well as geomatics (surveying and map-making) and computer systems engineering.

Health Sciences Building

The University of Alaska Anchorage’s Health Science Building (HSB) was completed in 2011 and represents the university's largest step to enhance its health-related mission. UAA is considered the health campus of the larger University of Alaska System. As the university has become more focused on health sciences, it has required the infrastructure and lab space to train students. 

Conoco-Phillips Building

The ConocoPhillips Building is among the most familiar sites in downtown Anchorage. At 22 stories and 296 feet high, the building is not only Anchorage's tallest but also the state's. Construction began in 1981 and was completed by 1983 at a cost of $63 million. It originally opened as the ARCO Tower to host Alaska management operations for the Atlantic Richfield Company, an oil exploration and drilling company, before being sold off to Phillips Petroleum.

The Bill Sheffield Alaska Railroad Depot

The Bill Sheffield Alaska Railroad Depot Railroad Depot opened in 2003 with the goal of connecting the Ted Stevens International Airport to Downtown Anchorage and beyond via rail. The depot and the branch line that connects to downtown were completed at the same time. It is named for the former governor and director of the Alaska Railroad, Bill Sheffield.

Eugene Short Hall

Eugene Short Hall (ESH) was completed in 1967 and dedicated in 1972, named after the former director of the Anchorage Community College (ACC), which would eventually come to be known as the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). ESH is notable in that it was the first academic building constructed for what was then the community college. Today, Eugene Short Hall is home to the University’s Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Parking Services, and the University of Alaska Anchorage Police.

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport

The Anchorage International Airport was built in 1948 with funding from a $13 million federal grant. It opened for air traffic in December 1951. The federal funding called for an "international type" airport in Anchorage as well as Fairbanks at a time when Alaska was still a territory (Alaska gained statehood in 1959). 

Alaska