Byron Birdsall's Alaska

These illustrations of historic Alaska by Byron Birdsall, one of the state’s most renowned artists, portray the territory from the beginning of the twentieth century through the first decades after Alaska achieved statehood in 1959. Accompanied by informative captions, the black-and-white drawings are organized by region: Southcentral Alaska including Anchorage, the Arctic, the Interior, the western/Bering Sea coast, and Southeast. Birdsall’s masterful illustrations depict a myriad of scenes, from tents on Ship Creek in 1915 to a train unloading tourists at McKinley Park Station in 1935, from the Governor’s Mansion in 1939 in the capital city of Juneau to the Good Friday earthquake in 1964 and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline near the Koyukuk River in 1975.