AHS Blog

Fairbanks Presentation, December 16: History of Creamer’s Field

Date Posted: December 9, 2015       Categories: News
The Tanana Yukon Historical Society
presents
 
The 3rd program of the 2015-2016 Season
 
Wednesday, 16 December 2015,  7 p.m.
 
Pioneer Hall at Pioneer Park, Fairbanks
 
“History of Creamer’s Field”
       
Presenter: Ruth Jolly Knapman
 
“Milk selling for $5 a quart in the gold fields” was the enticement for the Hinckley family to leave Oregon and to go to Nome with their dairy herd. No trees to build a barn, no natural grass for graze … and no $5 a quart caused the Hinckley’s to move their dairy to Barnette’s Cache on the Chena River in 1903.
 
The sale of dairy to Mrs. Hinckley’s sister and husband – Anna and Charlie Creamer, in 1928 – kept the dairy in the family for over 63 years, the longest of any in Alaska. 
 
Learn how the local residents kept the dairy from becoming a housing development and about its transformation into a migratory waterfowl refuge.  How Anna Creamers historical flowerbeds were recreated in 2004, will also be shared.
 
Long time Fairbanks resident Knapman learned of Alaska at a young age, planning her education so she would end up here.  Since her arrival in 1963, she has focused much her energy and enthusiasm on capturing the recent history of the Interior.  This has included maintenance of old cemeteries and researching burials in them, as well as recording the family histories of several members of the Pioneers of Alaska.  Tonight’s lecture is based on her 1971 interview of Charlie Creamer.
* * * *
For more information about this and other lectures sponsored by the Tanana Yukon Historical Society, please call 488-3383, or e-mail tyhs@alaska.net
 
All TYHS events are free and open to the public.
 
Check out our website http://fairbanks-tyhs.org/
or “friend” us on Facebook: Tanana-Yukon Historical Society