This town really needed a movie theater in 1907

[layla]

This picture totally cracks me up. It's basically the entire population of Fairbanks, circa 1907, standing on the banks of the river watching the ice go out. Yes: in 1907, ice floes were a popular spectator sport! XD

... I guess the paint drying championships must have been next week.

(Possibly-interesting note for non-Fairbanksans: The building at top left, on the far bank of the river, that says "Machinery" and "Samson" is Samson's Hardware, which is still there and still in business. About a block behind it, in the away-from-river direction, is where the present-day News-Miner building is located, where I work.)

Comments

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

I'm tremendously interested in history, in old buildings and old places. Fairbanks is, on the one hand, kind of frustrating because its history is so short -- there's only really been a town here for a little over a century; but on the other hand, our history is so recent and fresh, and we were practically a Wild West frontier town within the living memory of people who still live in town. The woods behind our house have old telegraph poles and railroad bridges and abandoned cabins and things. It's just *fun*.