The Alaska Contractor: Special 60th Anniversary Issue

PH O TO: LA R RY MO O R E & ASSOCIATES
PH O TO: CO U R T E SY O F YU KO N EQ U I P M E N T
By Ron Dalby
Unusual for many of his era, Glen Chambers actually fl ew to Alaska, “I
came up in May of 1946,” he said.
“I was hired out of state. I was paid to come up
here. I came on what they called Alaskan Airlines. It
was a DC-3 outfi t. They fl ew out of Seattle for about
50 bucks less than Alaska Airlines. We refueled on Annette
Island and landed at Merrill Field. It was then a
gravel fi eld.
“I was to go to work for—at that time the name of the
company was Lomen Equipment,” Chambers continued.
“The Lomen family’s an old family that goes way, way,
way back, probably out of Nome. I was hired in a threeperson
offi ce, and I was a combination parts manager
and service manager. The property was on Sixth and G,
and there were two lots.”
Glen Chambers testing an Alice Chalmers HD19 in the Anchorage rail yards.
Glen Chambers
‘That was our big thing ...
lots and lots and lots
of dynamite’
Six decades ago
Living in Anchorage was at once both predictable and
exciting in those days. For instance, power outages at
about 6 p.m. every evening were routine as people came
home from work and turned on their electric stoves at
the same time to cook supper.
For the three equipment companies operating here,
though, business was complicated by a lack of equipment
to sell and an “awful lot of surplus coming out of
the various military bases,” according to Chambers.
“There were three major dealers based on the tractors.
Yukon Equipment [Lomen Equipment when
Chambers started there] had the Chalmers, Northern
Commercial had the
Caterpillar dealership,
and a company called
the Carrington Co. out
of Seattle had the International
Harvester.
“The company [Lomen/Yukon
Equipment]
had offi ces in Fairbanks
and Anchorage, but the
main offi ce was in Seattle,”
Chambers said. “Just
about everybody that
was up here had a Seattle
offi ce because you
had to have somebody
to do your fi nancing and
you also consolidated
your shipments.
“Everything came up
by Alaska Steam from
Seattle to Seward. [Ships]
stopped in Juneau and
Cordova along the way,
then fi nished in Seward,
put it on the Alaska Railroad,
and brought it to
Anchorage.
12 The Alaska conTrAcTor 60th Anniversary Issue 1948–2008