Anchorage is Alaska’s most important city—the epicenter of commerce, a font of history, and the perfect base for exploring the state. So don’t just stroll through town—take the official tour, brought to you by longtime resident experts: Alaska.org and the Anchorage Convention & Visit Anchorage (Anchorage Convention & Visitors Bureau.) On this tour, you’ll hear all about Old City Hall, the Anchorage Hotel where Herbert Hoover stayed, a 1940s bar that was once for women only (!), and the city’s first house. And you’ll see it all accompanied by local Alaskans who know every corner and (almost) every secret in this captivating city.
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Walking Tour Points
Historic Downtown Anchorage Walking Tour
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In the 1940s and 50s, the men working in the coal, oil and lumber industries around Alaska had only one place to come spend their money and blow off steam: 4th Avenue, where the string of drinking establishments became known as the world’s longest bar (a nickname, legend has it, given by a visiting Bob Hope). Also making its home on the street is a log cabin created in Homer during the 1950s, which was immediately taken down and reassembled in… ...more
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In a city filled with relatively new buildings, most built well into the 20th century, the Historic Anchorage Hotel stands out for being different — it’s charmingly old. And while the 26-room, Queen-Anne-style hotel in downtown Anchorage is a thriving reminder of the city’s frontier past, it continues to charm guests with its high level of service and all the comforts of a 21st-century boutique hotel.
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This clearing at the edge of town once functioned as a firebreak between Anchorage and its neighboring forest. At other times, it acted as an airstrip, a golf course and even a makeshift housing development, when people lived here during the 1940s boom in apartments created out of old barracks. Today the Park Strip — just one block wide but 13 blocks long — is home to ball fields, a gym, ice rink and a giant steam… ...more
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What was it like for a family living in Anchorage in 1915? The Oscar Anderson House Museum, located in Elderberry Park at 5th Avenue and M Street, is the perfect way to find out.