This Day in History

In Alaska

• In 1894, the Yukon Order of Pioneers was organized at Forty Mile on the Yukon River.

• In 1924, Alaska Governor Scott C. Bone met with President Calvin Coolidge asking that Alaska be included in the Federal Highway Act.

• In 1935, the University of Alaska Library at Fairbanks moved into the new library/gymnasium building. It took 13 hours to move 12,000 books.

• In 1953, the Chugach Electric Company began operating the Knik Arm Power Facility on Ship Creek near Anchorage.

• In 1973, the Snettisham Hydroelectric Plant, which supplies Juneau with most of its electricity, was inaugurated.

• In 1978, President Jimmy Carter invoked the 1906 Antiquities Act to designate 56 million acres of land in Alaska as national monuments. (He did this after Congress failed to pass a D-2 law and before protection under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act ended Dec. 18.)

• In 1980, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus finalized approval for the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline right-of-way across federal lands from the North Slope into Canada. (The line has yet to be built.)