This Day in History
In Alaska
Sound off on the important issues at
• In 1910, Alaska was created as a separate Lighthouse District, the 16th, with Ketchikan as its headquarters.
• In 1964, outhouses were outlawed in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, as all residences were required to connect to city water and sewer lines.
• In 1956, the cornerstone was laid for the new $2 million Juneau-Douglas High School.
• In 1968, several hundred reindeer stopped all airplane traffic at the Nome airport. Herders had to drive the caribou the full length of the runway to get them back in the tundra.
• In 1969, the Anchorage department store chain which began as Caribou Pete's in 1951 officially became part of the Montgomery Ward chain.
• In 1977, the first tanker load of Alaskan oil from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields left the Port of Valdez aboard the ARCO Juneau.
• In 1979, the Alaska Department of Transportation completed an $800,000 study on the feasibility of connecting the Alaska Railroad with the Lower 48. Although it never did connect, the Alaska Railroad remains the northernmost railroad in North America.