Aunt Phil's Trunk - An Alaska Historian's Collection of Treasured Tales

Price: $19.95

Product Options

Volume:

Quantity:

Aunt Phil's Trunk Vol 1

Aunt Phil's Trunk Vol 2

Aunt Phil's Trunk Vol 3

These books are compilations of historical essays about early Alaska. Vol #1 features tales ranging from Native life in the pre-contact period through the era of Russian possession, and onward to the purchase of the territory by the United States and the gold rushes that ensued a few decades later. Volume 2 includes stories about Alaska’s early lawmen – and the criminals they pursued – along with its pioneering postmen and rugged adventurers who challenged the Great Land’s highest peaks. Volume 3 showcases stories about early Anchorage and the Alaska railroad, epidemics and rescues in the Far North and the daring flyboys of the 1920s.

Most of the book’s stories were compiled by the late Phyllis Downing Carlson, a near-lifelong resident of the state who published many of these tales in numerous publications. When she passed away in 1993 at the age of 84, her countless files fell into the hands of her niece, Laurel Downing Bill.

As luck would have it, Downing Bill also has a flair for writing and a passion for Alaskan history. As a memorial to her aunt and a gift to the rest of us, Downing Bill has been organizing these stories, adding her own details, exhaustively illustrating them with period photos, and publishing them in books which deserve to be snatched up by anyone with an interest in our state’s rich past.