From Benson to Baxter to Boniface, here’s a look at how Anchorage’s major thoroughfares were named.
The most common type of history question people ask me can be summed up as: “Why’s it named that?” Everyone lives in a relationship with their surroundings. And as with any relationship, knowing more about your partner — Anchorage, in this case — promotes a stronger connection. Today, it is time to learn the name origins for Anchorage’s major roads in the first part of a two-part series.
Farther east is Muldoon Road. Arnold Muldoon arrived in Anchorage in 1939 and quickly established a homestead near the southern end of the road that bears his name. He had not proven up when the Army arrived but was able to reclaim the same property — and cabin — after World War II when some of the withdrawn land was reopened to the public. In his will, Muldoon bequeathed money to the city for the statue of William Henry Seward installed outside the Loussac Library in 1991.
Turpin Street is west of and parallel to Muldoon Road. A former cowboy, Eldrick “Dick” Turpin moved to Alaska in 1937 and lived in Anchorage from 1946 on. He homesteaded along the road that bears his name. For any readers already tired of the word “homesteader,” it only gets worse from here. The Assembly vote came amid a national trend to honor King. The first Martin Luther King Jr. Day was observed that January. In Anchorage, however, former Assembly member Don Smith led an opposition movement, including a petition drive for a referendum to reverse the naming decision. In 1987, Anchorage residents overwhelmingly voted — more than 72% — against naming the performing arts center after King. Subsequent suggestions to rename 9th Avenue and part of Minnesota Drive failed.
The alphabetical series of streets in Fairview, from Barrow to Orca, were once far more confusing. Before 1945, there were both east and west letter streets. For example, there was both a West D Street and an East D Street. In some places, it was even more complicated than that, as there once was a West G Street, East G Street, now Gambell Street, and East G Place, now Hyder Street. In two stages, in 1945 and 1954, the streets were renamed after existing Alaska placenames.
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