Artifact of the Month: August 2023

Celebrating the Airport's 50th Anniversary

Commercial aviation came to Ketchikan in 1922, connecting our community with the rest of the world. Our first "airport" was actually a seaplane base. It wasn't until 1941, on nearby Annette Island, that planes without floats had a runway to utilize, courtesy of the U.S. military. For decades, passengers were shuttled the 21 miles between islands on a Grumman G-21A Goose amphibious flying boat.

Access to Ketchikan from down south dramatically eased in 1973 with the opening of the Ketchikan International Airport on Gravina Island. August marks the airport's 50th anniversary. Festivities spanned from August 3rd to the 5th and included the formal dedication, an Alaskan Air Command Band concert, an air show, special guests like pilots Roy Jones and Bob Ellis and the arrival of the first Alaska Airlines' Boeing 720 jet service from Seattle to the new airport.

The featured photographs were taken by John Arthur Robertson, who used his engineering background to work for the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers in Anchorage, and as an employee with the Ketchikan Gateway Borough planning department. Robertson was also a documentarian, hired to inventory Gold Rush relics on the Chilkoot Trail. We are grateful for photographers like this who recorded dates, locations, events, and names (and even camera settings!). Often in the moment, we think we'll remember important facts like these, but fast forward 50 years, it's the notes that photographers take that capture history just as much as the photos themselves.

Object ID #: KM 2023.2.19

Images: (top left) Air show on the tarmac. (top right) Flag raising ceremony by the Alaska National Guard, U.S. Coast Guard, and Alaska Air Command Band. (bottom right) Alaska Air Command Band concert outside of the terminal.

Envelope detail caption: John Robertson's handwritten notes recording the event and his camera settings.