One of Anchorage’s best-known residents has passed away. Frank Reed, who arrived in Alaska’s tent city on Ship Creek in 1915 as a toddler, died at Providence Hospital yesterday at age 99.
Reed, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this coming December, was raised in the hotel business. His family ran the original Anchorage Hotel until the mid 1930s, and Reed often told a story about a famous guest, artist Sydney Laurence, who paid his hotel bill with a oil painting of Mt. McKinley.
Speaking on KSKA’s Hometown Alaska last December, Reed remembers the reaction of Alaskans the day Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.
Over the course of his life, Reed worked as an electrical contractor, a developer, a bank vice president and head of the Small Business Administration in Anchorage.
Reed was married for 71 years to his wife, Maxine, who preceded him in death. He is survived by his daughter Pauline Reed, and by numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. Reed’s family plans to hold a celebration of his life on December 22 of this year, the day on which Reed would have turned 100.
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APTI Reporter-Producer Ellen Lockyer started her radio career in the late 1980s, after a stint at bush Alaska weekly newspapers, the Copper Valley Views and the Cordova Times. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Valdez Public Radio station KCHU needed a reporter, and Ellen picked up the microphone.
Since then, she has literally traveled the length of the state, from Attu to Eagle and from Barrow to Juneau, covering Alaska stories on the ground for the AK show, Alaska News Nightly, the Alaska Morning News and for Anchorage public radio station, KSKA
elockyer (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | 907.550.8446 | About Ellen
