IRONWOOD DAILY GLOBE
IRONWOOD, MICHIGAN |
March 19, 1935 page 1 |
Families in Northern Counties Will Begin
Migration to Alaska in April
Madison, March 19--(AP)--Modern
pioneers, in the person of 67 northern Wisconsin families now on
relief, will begin their exodus to a "new frontier" and a "new life"
in Alaska late in April.
Arlie Mucks, president of the
Wisconsin Rural Rehabilitation corporation, announced that Wisconsin's
quota of the 200 families which will seek to rehabilitate themselves
under federal direction in the fertile Matanuska valley, will sail
from Seattle, Wash., in May together will similar groups from northern
Michigan and Minnesota.
Relief offices in 16 northern
Wisconsin counties will make recommendations of families for the
journey to their new homes, but the final selection will be left to
the Rehabilitation corporation, a division of the Wisconsin Emergency
Relief Administration. The FERA is sponsoring the project.
All qualifications have not been
determined, Mucks said, but the eligible families must have been on
relief for some time, their members must be healthy and they must have
an agricultural background. The husband and wife must be between 35
and 40, and willing to settle in the new Utopia.
The new frontier is located near the
village of Palmer in the Matanuska valley, 175 miles north of Seward,
on the southern coast of Alaska, and 35 miles northeast of Anchorage.
Four hundred CCC men and members of
transient camps on the Pacific coast are being sent to Palmer this
month to clear the land, build roads and houses, as well as a
creamery, school building and community hall.
When the settlers arrive, each will
be assigned 40 acres of land. In rehabilitating the families, the
government intends to spend $3,000 on each group, and the "pioneers"
must agree to liquidate the government advance over 30 years.
The climate is similar to that in
Wisconsin, Mucks said he was told in Washington. The valley is ideal
for agricultural purposes, he said, and the only grain common to
Wisconsin which will not grow is corn.
Mucks said the first colony will be a
model one, and if successful the government hopes to establish others
on suitable land in Alaska.
Sixty-seven Minnesota families now
living on unproductive northern Minnesota lands have been chosen for
the government's experiment in Alaskan migration, Charles St. Denis,
secretary of the Minnesota State Rural Rehabilitation corporation,
announced.
The selections have not yet been
confirmed, however, St. Denis explained, adding that final approval
rests with the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation corporation. The group is
to be set up on farm lands in Alaska.
All Minnesota families have been
selected from the relief rolls in a cut-over area including Pine,
Carlton, Itasca, Koochiching, Beltrami, Lake of the Woods, Cass, Mille
Lacs and Kanabec counties. No single men will be chosen in Minnesota,
St. Denis said, the quota of these having already been filled from
Civilian Conservation Corps and transient camps in Washington and
Oregon.
Preliminary plans call for the "migrators"
to leave Seattle about May 1, with others in the group to be chosen
from northern Wisconsin and Michigan. |
