![Cover image for John D. Urban collection, [picture] 1923, 1925.](/client/assets/5.898/ctx//client/images/no_image.png "Cover image for John D. Urban collection, [picture] 1923, 1925.")
John D. Urban collection, [picture] 1923, 1925.
Title:
John D. Urban collection, [picture] 1923, 1925.
JLCTITLE245:
[picture]
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
6 albums (772 photographic prints) ; 29 x 39 cm. or smaller.
772 photographic prints : b&w, some hand-tinted ; 7 x 4 cm.-21 x 26 cm.
Abstract:
The collection consists of 6 photograph albums (26 x 31 cm.-29 x 39 cm.) containing 772 (7 x 4 cm.-21 x 26 cm., b&w, some hand tinted col.) photographic prints. The majority of the photographs were taken about 1925 when Urban was a tourist agent for the Alaska Railroad. The albums were used by Urban to show Alaska to prospective railroad tourists. The photographs of President Harding were taken when he visited Alaska to drive the golden spike at Nenana in 1923. The photographs include images of the Alaska Railroad from Seward to Fairbanks concentrating on wrecks and bridges, Governor Parks playing golf, a Fokker taking off, Sydney Laurence paintings, sled dog teams, Mount McKinley, the riverboat "Alice, " glaciers, Alaskan wildlife, pelts, fish, hunting, and fishing. Also included are commercial photos, many hand-tinted by John Urban, of scenes throughout Alaska. Other photographs include those by Cann of the Fairbanks Agricultural Experiment Farm and those by Guy Cameron, hand-tinted, of Sanctuary Creek Camp at McKinley Park, Chitina, Gulkana, Anchorage, tidewater glaciers, and miscellaneous other Alaskan subjects.
Subject Term:
Biographical/Historical Data:
John D. (Jack) Urban was born in 1882 in Portage, Wis. and moved to Washington state as a child. During the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, Urban and a friend stowed away aboard a scow leaving Seattle for Skagway. They did odd jobs on board to pay their way and were given a mule as payment. The two men used the mule and a sled found on the beach to begin their own business hauling freight up the Chilkoot Trail for stampeders. Urban moved to Nome in 1900 and to Fairbanks in 1906, during the gold rushes there. Urban moved to Anchorage in 1922 and began working for the Alaska Railroad as a brakeman. He married Edith Edlund, one of eleven children from a Matanuska Valley homesteading family in 1926. Edlund's family originally came to Knik and constructed a five-mile wagon road to their new homestead in order to bring in the family and their equipment. The Urbans moved in 1931 to their homestead on Loop Road, a one-room log cabin, in order to help defray costs duing the Great Depression. Urban continued his work on the Alaska Railroad, while Edith worked as a telephone operator. Urban retired from the Alaska Railroad as a conductor in 1945 and died on Dec. 13, 1958 in Idlewild, California.