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Weeks Field

1923 establishments in Alaska1951 disestablishments in AlaskaAirports in Fairbanks North Star Borough, AlaskaDefunct airports in Alaska

Weeks Field was the first airport for Fairbanks, Alaska, existing from 1923 to 1951, when most operations were moved to Fairbanks International Airport. In later years, the term Weeks Field came to be known for neighborhoods of Fairbanks in the path and vicinity of the former airstrip. Most of the area became a city (later borough) park and residential areas, with the few surviving buildings serving mostly commercial functions. Weeks Field was built in 1923 on the site of a baseball field named Weeks Ball Park, which had served as an impromptu landing strip for airplanes prior to the construction of the airport. On July 4, 1923, Carl Ben Eielson flew the first commercial aircraft flight in Alaska from Weeks Field. The baseball field/race track was named after John W. Weeks. Noel Wien and Bill Yunker made the first non-stop flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks on 6 July 1924, taking off from Delaney Park Strip and landing at Weeks Field in under 4 hours.On 20 Oct. 1928, Wien Alaska Airways, Inc. was incorporated with Noel Wien as president, Ralph Wien as vice-president, and Miners and Merchants Bank president Granville (Grant) R. Jackson as secretary. The new company built a hangar at Weeks Field.: 255–256 During the Second World War, Weeks Field was used by the U.S. Army Air Corps, which also built nearby Ladd Army Airfield. The construction of Denali Elementary School, which began in 1950 near the western end of the runway, signaled the end of active operations for Weeks Field. The Fairview Manor apartment complex and a subdivision of single-family homes followed soon after in the immediate area. In 1951, the control tower for the field was closed, which burned down shortly afterward. Most operators had moved to the newly opened Fairbanks International Airport. Several operators who had felt bitter over being forced to move, led by Jess Bachner, established the Phillips Field airstrip several miles northwest of Fairbanks, near College. The city of Fairbanks later converted the area to a park, originally called Wien Park. The park is currently owned by the Fairbanks North Star Borough, which assumed control of the former city parks, and the Weeks Field name has been restored to the property. The borough built the Noel Wien Public Library in 1977 on a portion of the former airfield, after the site was originally proposed to house a new police station for Fairbanks. A number of structures which supported operations for the airfield still stand. Most prominent is the former Pan American Airways hangar, which currently houses commercial and office space as well as a bowling alley. A Lutheran church, which may resemble a hangar but was built in 1960 as a church, lies south of the Pan Am hangar. The former Gillam Airways hangar, which anchors the current Gillam Way at its intersection with Airport Way, has housed numerous businesses over the years and is currently home to a pawn shop. In 2009, work began on demolishing Fairview Manor and replacing it with a new housing complex. The new housing complex is also named after the airfield and located on a portion of its grounds.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Weeks Field (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Weeks Field
West Barnette Street, Fairbanks South Fairbanks

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N 64.838333333333 ° E -147.73305555556 °
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Barnette Magnet School

West Barnette Street
99707 Fairbanks, South Fairbanks
Alaska, United States
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Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the population of the city proper at 32,515 and the population of the Fairbanks North Star Borough at 95,655, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in Alaska after Anchorage. The Metropolitan Statistical Area encompasses all of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and is the northernmost Metropolitan Statistical Area in the United States, located 196 miles (315 kilometers) by road (140 mi or 230 km by air) south of the Arctic Circle. In August 1901, E.T. Barnette founded a trading post on the south bank of the Chena River. A gold discovery near the trading post sparked the Fairbanks Gold Rush, and many miners moved to the area. There was a boom in construction, and in November 1903 the area's residents voted to incorporate the city of Fairbanks. Barnette became the first mayor, and the city flourished during the gold rush. By World War I, the population had plunged, but rose again during the Great Depression as the price of gold increased. During the 1940s and 1950s, the city became a staging area for the construction of military depots during World War II and the Cold War. Fort Wainwright, previously named Ladd Field, was built east of the city beginning in 1938 and is operated by the U.S. Army. After the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field in 1968, the city became a supply point for the oil field, as well as for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. With the establishment of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in 1964, the city became borough seat. Tourism is also a factor in Fairbanks' economy. Fairbanks is in the Tanana Valley, straddling the Chena River near its confluence with the Tanana River. The Tanana River marks the city's southern border, and the Tanana Flats, a large area of marsh and bog, is south of the river. Fairbanks is the coldest city in the United States with a population of at least 10,000 people. Monthly mean temperatures range from −8.3 °F (−22.4 °C) in January to 62.9 °F (17.2 °C) in July. In winter, Fairbanks' location in the Tanana Valley causes cold air to accumulate in the city and warm air to rise up the hills to the north, and the city experiences one of the biggest temperature inversions on Earth.Fairbanks is home to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the founding campus of the University of Alaska system, established in 1917. Fairbanks International Airport is located three miles (5 km) southwest of the central business district of the city; Fairbanks is the smallest city in the United States with regularly scheduled non-stop international flights.

Fairbanks City Hall
Fairbanks City Hall

The Patrick B. Cole Fairbanks City Hall, also known as Main School and Old Main for its previous use as a school building, is located at 800 Cushman Street in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. An Art Deco concrete building, it was built in 1934 to replace the original Fairbanks school, a wooden building constructed in 1907 which burned down in late 1932. As Fairbanks grew exponentially with the military buildup associated with World War II and the Cold War, the building was enlarged in 1939 and again in 1948. It was the city's only school from its opening in 1934 until the opening of Denali Elementary School in 1951. It became a junior/senior high school for several years until Lathrop High School began operation. The school then became Main Junior High School until it was replaced by Ryan Junior High School and Tanana Junior High School during the early 1970s.Following the disestablishment of Main Junior High, instruction in the building was mostly limited to alternative education programs. The building's primary purpose at that point was to house the administrative offices of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, a role it filled from 1976 until 1993. Most of those offices moved to the school district's current Fifth Avenue headquarters in the mid 1980s, and the building sat largely vacant for many years, eventually being completely abandoned. The building has housed city offices since 1994, which moved from the longtime Fairbanks City Hall three blocks to the north. In addition to city offices, the former school gymnasium is home to the Fairbanks Boys & Girls Club. Previous non-governmental tenants of the building under city ownership have included the Fairbanks Boxing Club and the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 as Main School.