newsminer.com

10 YEARS AGO

Aug. 12, 1998 — When a grizzly bear wandered into Healy early this summer and helped itself to a meal of used cooking grease from 55-gallon drums behind a restaurant, Karen Fortier began bracing for a big season. Fortier’s job is to help bears and humans coexist peacefully in Denali National Park and Preserve. She got several calls from residents near Denali. One Healy man reported a grizzly broke into his shed and chomped down food. A McKinley Village resident complained of a black bear in a Dumpster. Calls about bear problems near the park boundaries have tapered off somewhat since June. But Fortier and Vorisek are pushing ahead with what they believe will be a groundbreaking plan creating the first certified “bear safe” communities in Alaska.

25 YEARS AGO

Aug. 12, 1983 — Commercial development is booming in the Bentley and Gavora Malls and Fred Meyer areas. And with development has come serious traffic and safety problems at the Old Steese Highway intersections of College Road and Minnie Street. But city and state transportation planners and mall developers are working on a new intersection, upgrading roads and existing intersections and additional access roads to help ease the problems. Since 1959, traffic has nearly quadrupled along College Road from Illinois Street to the Old Steese Highway and through to the Wendell Street Bridge.

50 YEARS AGO

Aug. 12, 1958 — Mike Reaves of the Apaches swings a wicked bat for the Elmendorf Little League All-Stars and can be counted on to give opposing pitchers a few lumps during the Little League tournament starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Griffin Park. Reaves has led the Elmendorf Air Force Base League with a blazing .500, as the hawkeyed second baseman garnered 13 hits in 26 times at bat.

75 YEARS AGO

Aug. 12, 1933 — One million dollars in round American money is the bet of Fairbanks merchants and manufacturers that this city is the premier community in the territory of Alaska. One million dollars expended in construction and improvements during the last year is the determined slap Fairbanks has delivered directly into the face of Old Man Depression. A new school house is being built; one airplane company has a steel hangar under construction and another firm is contemplating a like building; two breweries are well on the way toward completion; two new drugstores are virtually ready to open their doors for business; a motor company is enlarging its garage; the Northern Commercial Company is ready to announce the opening of one of the largest stores in all Alaska; and, in the center of all that activity, the United States government has erected an administration building of such magnificence that it will be truly measured in this wise: $450,000.