Last updated: February 13, 2025
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Black History in the Last Frontier: Thomas Stokes Bevers
Carl Lottsfeldt Collection (Anchorage Museum B1978.111.26).
Alaska Railroad and Engineering Commission (Anchorage Museum B1963_016_006).
Heading West after World War I
In his late twenties, Bevers left Virginia to enlist as a soldier in the First World War at a time when the nation’s Armed Forces remained segregated. When Bevers completed his service, he headed West, settling in Seattle in 1920 before relocating to Anchorage, Alaska in 1921.
Making a New Life in Anchorage
In Anchorage, he found a city with opportunities that evaded him elsewhere. During that time, the federally owned and operated Alaska Railroad held great sway over the town’s economy. Perhaps fearing the town’s settlers would treat him harshly if they knew of his ancestry, Bevers kept his identity as a mixed-race black man to himself.Before settlers named it Anchorage, the Dena’ina referred to the land as Dgheyaytnu, and it functioned largely as a seasonal fish camp. The indigenous population that settled southcentral Alaska had been in the area for thousands of years. White settlers arrived in larger number only in 1915 as construction began on the Alaska Railroad. The region’s black population remained nil. In fact, few black people traveled to Anchorage at first, but the population steadily grew in the decades to come. Bevers was certainly among the earliest African Americans to have arrived in Anchorage and one of the few who seemed to have stayed.
Alaska Railroad and Engineering Commission
(Anchorage Museum B1962_007_2).
Anchorage’s First Paid Firefighter
Thomas Bevers was active in Anchorage’s civic life, volunteering as a firefighter and working as a blacksmith. Before long, Bevers earned the respect of his fellow firefighters, and in 1922 he became Anchorage’s first paid fireman. In 1927, he became Chief of the Fire Department, and with the support of his fellow firefighters, Bevers asked for and received a pay raise from $155 to $175 a month. He served as fire chief until he retired in 1940.
Community Leader and Founder of Fur Rendezvous
In addition to fighting fires, Bevers took an interest in fur trading, and along with several other investors, he purchased eight acres of land between 10th and M Street, now a part of downtown Anchorage. Bevers’s fur farm and trading post culminated in Anchorage’s location as a key center for Alaska’s fur trading industry. Two decades later, Bevers, along with others in the young community, initiated an annual fur trading exposition, an event Alaskans recognize today as Fur Rendezvous. In the early 1940s, Bevers won a seat on the City Council and served two terms.In 1944, Tom Bevers died unexpectedly, likely due to a heart attack, while on a hunting trip. By that time, he had ascended Anchorage’s social ladder and was revered throughout the community. “Anchorage has lost one of its best friends and leaders,” eulogized the Anchorage Daily Times. After his death, many in town were surprised to find out that his family was black. Only after his sister, who reportedly had darker skin than Tom, arrived in Anchorage to settle his finances and prepare his body to be returned to Virginia, did Anchorage residents learn he was mixed-race. By that time though, Tom Bevers had accumulated the good will of his adopted community. Members of the local Elks Club and Masons lobbied to keep his remains in Anchorage and provide a proper funeral, a proposition to which his sister agreed. The Masons read the burial rites and laid Bevers to rest at the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery, where one may find his gravesite today.
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Deeply involved in human rights in the 1960s and 1970s, Willard Bowman spoke candidly about the prevalence of racial discrimination in Alaska and proposed solutions to address the inequities. Serving African Americans and Alaska Natives across the state, his work left a lasting legacy.
Mahala Ashley Dickerson was not only the Matanuska-Susitna Valley's first Black homesteader, she was also the first Black lawyer in Alaska. Her groundbreaking career was filled with zeal for helping others and she was recognized nationally for her courtroom prowess.
Following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the fear of a military invasion in North America increased. The U.S. Armed Forces sought to fortify and connect Alaska to the nation’s contiguous 48 states. The work was difficult and the demand for additional workers was so high that the military reversed some of its discriminatory policies to allow black troops to participate in the construction effort.
Thomas Stokes Bevers set out to make a new life in the West after World War I. Settling in Anchorage, he quickly became a community leader while serving as Anchorage's first paid firefighter and founding Fur Rendezvous, a yearly event that still occurs today.
- Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Black History in the Last Frontier: Company L, 24th Infantry
- Locations: Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Black soldiers were among the first members of the United States military to arrive in Alaska on the heels of the Klondike Gold Rush. Today, arguably no single institution has had as large of an impact on Alaska as the United States military. The men who served in Company L, 24th Infantry might thus be seen as among the first soldiers who initiated a long, deep relationship between the military and Alaska.
Born in Georgia in 1839, the son of an Irish-born slaveholder and a black woman, Michael Healy grew up amid the tumult of sectional conflict and civil war. Though he was born enslaved, he would go on to live an accomplished life at sea. At the peak of his career, Healy knew the expanse of the North Pacific and Arctic waters better than anyone.
- Locations: Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Iñupiat Heritage Center, New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
Black whalers were among the first Americans to reach Alaska, specifically its southeast panhandle, in the early 1840s. Some of these men had escaped enslavement in the American South, while others were free men of color from the North. It would have been difficult to find a more racially and geographically diverse industry than whaling in the nineteenth century.