The Way We Were

Nov. 20, 1924

E.A. Rasmuson, president of the Bank of Alaska, said Wrangell had the best summer it has experienced during the past 20 years. The cold storage plant has done a splendid business, and the lumber mill ran full blast all summer. This mill has a capacity of 75,000 board feet a day. Mr. Rasmuson believes there will be quite a rush into Wrangell next spring, when miners and prospectors will arrive there en route to the new placer gold strike in the Cassiar region in British Columbia. He said miners who have visited the mining properties there believe in the future of the camp. They say it is virgin ground which looks good, but has not been proven yet. There is a good auto road for 70 miles from Telegraph Creek en route to the new diggings.

Nov. 18, 1949

The chamber of commerce at its Monday session took a firm stand on the matter of getting rid of some of the town’s worst eyesores. They adopted a motion asking the city council to condemn and tear down all buildings unfit for living quarters – of which there are a great many hereabouts. These ancient shacks, the chamber declared, constitute not only an eyesore but a fire hazard and a menace to health and sanitation. A few houses were pointed out as examples and the city council will be asked to have them formally condemned and torn down.

Nov. 20, 1974

Wrangell will soon have numbered houses. The city council has approved a system of numbering presented last week by Public Works Supt. Cliff White. White presented a map of the city, assigning groups of numbers to individual city blocks – even numbers on one side of the street, odd on the other. City Clerk Joyce Rasler said the number designations probably will be included on the January utility bills. No deadline as to when numbers must be displayed on houses has been set, she said, but indicated that putting them up will be the responsibility of property owners. White said the number of dwellings in the city has become too many for the old non-numbered system to be practical. Emergency crews and public works employers frequently have trouble locating specific houses, he said, because there is no formal identification system.

Nov. 18, 1999

Wrangell’s cats came back to haunt the city council as they deliberated on the unfinished business of an ordinance amending city code to allow felines as well as dogs to be impounded. The city has no specific records on the number of cats which might be impounded and so it is not able to estimate the cost of the ordinance change. However, with fervent hopes that the issue can be resolved for longer than nine lives, the council voted to permit impoundment of cats.