saac “Ike” Koslosky was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1872 and arrived in the United States in 1887 at the age of fifteen. Ten years later, he participated in the first stampede to the Klondike and for two years he prospected at Bonanza Creek. In 1901, he returned to Kansas City, Missouri where he married Lena Schindleman. She was a nineteen-year-old beauty who had come to the United States with her parents from Russia in 1898.

The couple operated a clothing store in Kansas City until 1915, when they heard of the new town being built on upper Cook Inlet in Alaska. By then, they had three sons, Harold, born in 1902; Leo, born in 1905 and Jan, born in 1909, and a daughter, Gladys, born in 1910. Isaac and Lena packed up the family and headed north, arriving in the spring of 1915 in Tent City, where they first set up housekeeping. Isaac immediately opened a store and, with Lena at his side, sold clothing and dry goods. They ran a successful business for two years and then decided to move back to Kansas City in 1917.

Four years later, they returned to Anchorage and established a store, a trading business and a fur-buying business. A fifth child, Ralph, was born in 1921 in Anchorage, completing a family whose businesses lasted for more than seventy years.

Ike Koslosky was instrumental in establishing the fur trade in Anchorage and was followed in the business by sons Leo and Ralph. Son Jan opened the first store in the new Matanuska Valley city of Palmer in 1935. Son Harold oversaw the operations of the Koslosky store, The Hub clothing store and Harold’s Shoe Store, all in Anchorage. Daughter Gladys left Alaska soon after high school, lived in southern California for many years, and finally returned to Anchorage in 1975.

The Koslosky businesses were always family affairs, and Lena would proudly say that they operated a business for over fifty years without any setbacks that they could not overcome. She often stated, “I have seen the time when the poorest day in business involved only the sale of a twenty-five-cent pair of gloves.” Members of the family continued to operate the stores until 1985.

Isaac died in 1940, and Lena in 1962. Both are buried in Anchorage Memorial Park, as is son Ralph, who died in 1977. Harold died in 1975 and is buried in Angelus Memorial Park in Anchorage. Jan died in 1991 and is buried in the Palmer Cemetery, and Leo, who died in 1952, is buried in Seattle. Gladys died in 2001.

Ike and Lena Koslosky had twelve grandchildren. Harold had two sons, Herbert and Howard. Howard died in the VietNam War. Leo had two children. Jan had one son, Jan, and two daughters, Susan and Linda. Ralph had two sons, Mark and Larry, and one daughter, Cheryl. Gladys had one son, Bill Levine, and a daughter, Janet.