The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-05-16
THE MATANUSKANS

Today the Matanuska colonists are celebrating the first anniversary of their arrival in the famous valley. To the blare of nationwide publicity they dropped into Alaska last year and despite the unfavorable start and howl that went up in many places, the majority of them have stuck No group of pioneers ever went any where with such flare of publicity. Newspapers, magazines and cameramen rushed to the north to tell the world about it. Some of the reports that of Matanuska last year enough to kill almost any ordinary undertaking. But year has passed and things have changed It is interesting to note the following article the project appearing in a recent issue of the Literary Digest. While containing obvious it does the whole show entirely different attitude after 12 months than that which heard the length and breadth of the land year ago. The Digest reports
 It raining just year ago when POS families from drought parched Northern Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, sturdy Swedes and Films in their early thirtes, debouched into the Alaska Rural Rehabili- tation Corporations headquarters at Palmer. They had come by train for thirty-five miles from Anchorage port and railway town Cook Inlet, where the Army transport St. Mihiel landed them
 For time everything seemed to go wrong. In less than two months histerng telegrams being sent demanding a Senatorial in- vestgation, and there was sporadic wranglng Capitol Hill
 Fifty-two families returned to the States" Some gaps filled by native Alaskans. The colony in the lush Matanuska Valley includes IF homesteaders who had previously settled there.
 Home-sites scattered over ten-to twelve-mile tract stretching east and south of Palmer in the of the towering Gnu zach Range. The colony nestes in a valley hemmed by snow-crested peaks, and low hills green with spruce and hemlock.
 At first much political ferment dis titled from complaints of Matanuska malcon- tent hut uJherth Inc 10poa tic win baOo coonists and older homesteaders settled down Today, with appropriate civic pride, they point to their 173 spruce-log cabins and bungalows with parlor. kitchen, bedrooms. and running water that cost Uncle Sam $3,000 each
 There are 123 barns, 188 wells, and eighty two new miles of roads. power-pant with steam boilers and Diesel-powered genera tors heats and lights community which year ago, was cluster of Army shelter-tents lit by kerosene
 They take pride in their eight good looking schoo-teachers, who like tutors travel from house to house to instruct their young charges. A thousand applications for teaching jobs have been sent to the ARRC. A 1.50n-foot steel bridge spans the Knik River, and the Alaska Railroad has built the Territorys largest station.
 Inside cabin, cheery fire crackles the appetizing aroma of good food from the com munity store fills the air and there's mail order furniture, radio and mimeographed weekly newspaper. II It's Saturday, the homesteaders will be at the community dance hall, where home-talent music serves Then there snow-sports and bridge in the long evenings.
 If the farmers grew tired of bridge last winter, they could pick up little Fed era cash by shooting wolves There is a S15 bounty on each wolf killed and Alaskan wolf packs roam the country in groups of from fifty to 200 CThe wolf bounty is S20)
 And money be made catching trout, he of for each trout caught All the angler has to do is produce the head, after he has eaten the fish. The trout eat valuable salmon eggs in the spring when the fish ascend rivers to spawn, and salmon and haibut fishing is worth. $2,O00,000 year to Alaska Shoot an eagle, and you get $500 (Trout bounty is paid by the Bureau only in Bristol Bay area on Dolly Warden trout tails only)
 One of the colonists complaints is EZRA management There are seventeen Fed