eon William Hartley, born in Galesburg, Illinois, August 29, 1893, arrived in Seward in March, 1916 to seek adventure in Alaska. Like many others moving into the new town of Anchorage, he set out from Seward on the train as far as Lawing, which was the end of the line. Nellie Neal Lawing ran a roadhouse there and charged two dollars for a spot on the floor to put down your blankets. This was too high a price to pay for a night’s lodging, so “L.W.,” as he was called, made himself a bed of spruce boughs and slept out under the stars, a common practice among both men and women travelers in those days. With two friends, L.W. bought a sled and “necked” it from Lawing to Indian, then over the pass and down Ship Creek to the town of Anchorage. He found work with the Alaska Railroad as a carpenter and muleskinner, and spent the first winter in a “remote” cabin at what is now 3rd Avenue and B Street.

Hartley prospected for coal in the Moose Creek area and found a few small veins, which he dug and hauled to the railhead by horse and bobsled. His high school sweetheart, Ruth Marian English, originally from Carroll, Iowa, came north from Seattle and they were married. They spent their first winter in a small cabin near Moose Creek and his coal diggings. L.W. then moved out of the coal business and returned to Anchorage where he was employed by the Brown and Hawkins mercantile company.

In March 1924, along with partner Neil Wanamaker, L.W. purchased the C. W. Bolte Hardware Store in Anchorage for a reported price of sixty thousand dollars. This was purportedly the largest business deal to that date in Anchorage. The store was later sold to the Anchorage Commercial Company, which became the Northern Commercial Company. The N.C. Company, as it was known, was Anchorage’s first department store, handling clothing, hardware, groceries and sundries as well as being the agent for the Caterpillar Tractor Company. The N.C. Company eventually sold off all of its interests except the Caterpillar division, and Nordstrom department stores of Seattle purchased the clothing and general merchandise portion and incorporated it into their operation.

L.W. and his family moved to Fairbanks in 1927, where he operated a furniture store. He returned to Anchorage in 1928 and in 1929 operated a salmon cannery and fish trap near Point Possession. A year later he and partner Pete Wolden operated Northern Transfer, a trucking business which transported mining equipment to the Willow Creek mining district prior to the road completion between Anchorage and Palmer. When the highway was completed in 1936, they continued their trucking business for a number of years out of Anchorage.

Hartley also tried placer mining in the Ophir district until World War II put an end to it. He then moved the family to Kenai, where he owned and operated a trading post from 1941 to 1945. The family then moved back to Palmer, where L.W. purchased the old Jimmy St. Clair Resort on Finger Lake.

During his time in Alaska, L.W. also claimed the distinction of having been shipwrecked three times while traveling between Alaska and Seattle on the Alaska Steamship line, on the vessels Alameda, Victoria and Yukon.

L.W. and Ruth had three children. Lee, the oldest, had three daughters: Clare, Signe and Brenda. Son James, now deceased, had four children: James, Catherine, Joan and Karen. Son Robert had three children: Kirk, Helen and Roberta. L.W. died at the age of ninety-three in the Pioneer Home at Palmer, and Ruth passed away at the age of eighty-eight in the Palmer Pioneer Home. Both are buried in the Butte Cemetery near Palmer.