Editorial 5.3, April 2003, by Deirdre Helfferich A Slightly Sappy Centennial Retrospective Ester is a small community on the outskirts of a big one. As Matt Reckard once said, Ester is still around because there’s a McDonald’s in Fairbanks. Community spirit, as well as a sense of place and local history, has helped to keep this village going for a century. Here’s how it all started: Gold was discovered by Latham Jones February 4th, 1903, on Ester Creek, or perhaps by Jack Mihalcik in November of that year, according to research conducted by Matthew Reckard.1 The news didn’t get out until the following July, and thus the rush began: Ester City swelled into being and nobody’s been able to pry its denizens out since. Gold is still being mined, and while Fairbanks has swallowed Chena and other little towns nearby, the mines and dredges have for the most part prevented Alaska’s second-biggest city from blurring into our territory. We have a hundred years of history behind us. The Berry camp at 8 Below Discovery, a few miles to the east, became the site of our first post office in 1906, (about the same time the first saloon opened in Berry) and even though it moved to Ester City a few years later, it remained the Berry post office in name until 1965. The Social Hall was completed in Ester in 1907 and was a well-used dance and party establishment for a good twenty years.2 The F.E. Company began dredging in 1929, and Ansgar Clausen and other notables moved into town in the early forties. In 1941 the Ester Community Association was founded, in 1958 Don Pearson opened the Malemute Saloon, in 1963 the F.E. Company closed up shop, leaving its dredge behind, and in 1974, the Ester Volunteer Fire Department was founded. In 1976 the Parks Highway bypassed our village and Old Nenana became a back road. The eighties saw the new Golden Eagle Saloon, the creation of the Ester Community Park, pig roasts,3 and the expansion of the EVFD.4 Due to Joe Ryan’s letter to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner’s editor, Ester became known as "The People’s Republic of Ester" in 1986, to both the chagrin and amusement of the villagers.5 The Fireplug Sled Dog Race was established 19906 and the village square had many mushers and dogs in the middle of the winter for the decade following. The Ester Football League started up that same year, and became infamous for bunny-booted hail marys.7 The Fourth of July parade became a notorious event, culminating in a giant picnic at the park to which even Fairbanksans come. Several of Ester’s oldtimers died during the nineties, and important links to our past were lost. In 1999, The Ester Republic and the John Trigg Ester Library were founded, and the post office was saved from conversion into a Fairbanks contract station. The turn of the millennium brought with it the establishment of Calypso Farm and Ecology Center and the influx of fresh organic veggies every Friday at the park by last year. Berry is in the midst of a resurgence, with new houses and businesses along Gold Hill Road and the Parks. The mines in Ester are still producing gold, the hills around Ester are hot property, and our community spirit is as bright as ever. There are the things that make Ester a community: the park, the fire station, the post office, the farm, the library, the paper, the village square, the saloons. There are the events, too: the Fourth of July, Bastille Day, the Squash Fest, the Spamfest, Mardi Gras, Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween, the Easter Egg Hunt, the art shows, the EFL games, the spur-of-the-moment barbecues, the snowmachine and skiing treks, the ECA meetings and events, the costume parties, Clean-Up Day, the park work parties. Most of all, however, it is the people living, talking, working, gossiping, and celebrating together that make us a community. From its earliest beginnings, Ester has always appreciated a good get-together and known how to dance, metaphorically and literally. We know how to argue, too: we jump up and down and yell if necessary, respecting each other’s right to eccentricities and irrational beliefs while we expound our own, but then—usually—we invite that neighbor to the next potluck, buy her a beverage at the saloon, or work on a float with them in the parade. Disagreements as much as celebrations are a part of small-town living, but it’s the living together that makes us a community and not just a suburb of somewhere else. We can’t help but run into each other around here—it is a small town, and since we have to live with each other, we might as well enjoy it. So what’s up for the next hundred years? Anybody want to start it off with a party? 1 The Ester Republic, v. 1 n. 3, "The Discovery of Gold on Ester Creek," by Matt Reckard. 2 The Ester Republic, v. 1 n. 7, "Early Ester’s Social Hall," by Matt Reckard. 3 The Ester Republic, v. 2 n. 1, "TEOTWAWKI: The Ten Most Important Events in Ester History," by Mark G. Simpson. 4 Ester Volunteer Fire Department website, www.esterfire.org, About EVFD, maintained by Kyle Carrington. 5 "TEOTWAWKI: Politico-Financial Musings," The Ester Republic, v. 1 n. 6, by Mark G. Simpson. 6 The Ester Republic Telephone Directory and Local Et Cetera, 2000, "The Fireplug Sled Dog Race," by D. Helfferich (other references include several articles about the Fireplug in The Ester Republic, by K. Sisson, Todd Hoener, Mike Nolan, and others.) 7 "A History of the Ester Football League," Local Et Cetera, 2002, by Mark. G. Simpson. | ||
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