ohn J. Longacre was born in Nevada, Missouri in 1881. He received his basic education in home schools before he took up electrical engineering in St. Louis. In 1898, he moved to California where he engaged in electrical construction work until he heard of gold in the streets in the Klondike and headed north to Dawson in 1900. In 1902, he returned to California, but not for long. In 1905 he traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska and for three years worked for the Tanana Electric Company, installing the first electric power plant at Chatanika.

Edyth Jensen was born in San Diego, California in 1888 and at the age of fifteen, came north to join her mother and stepfather on his gold claim in Dawson. Soon afterward, the claim flooded out and they moved to Cleary Creek, just north of Fairbanks.

Edyth and John Longacre were married and settled in Clear in 1906. With the flash of an oil discovery in Katalla, southeast of Cordova, they moved there and John went to work for the Guggenheims as an electrical engineer. They lived in Katalla from 1907 to 1909, and John also operated a general store there.

In 1910, they moved to California, where John worked as an engineer and also had some interest in oil development. In 1915, they heard of the new city and the railroad construction in Anchorage, and came north again. John was employed by the Alaskan Engineering Commission, became the first chief electrician for the Alaska Railroad, and held that position until his retirement in 1943. He was a member of Anchorage’s first city council, which convened in 1915, and was active in the Masonic Lodge.

John and Edyth had three children: Frances, born in 1910; Dora Jane, born in 1920 and John J. Jr., born in 1923. Edyth was a charter member of the Pioneers of Alaska Auxiliary No. 4 and the Eastern Star No. 8. A classic Alaska pioneer woman, she shared the rigors life in the boom towns of the Yukon and Alaska and prior to her death in 1983 was the last living charter member of her Pioneers and Eastern Star chapters.

Daughter Frances Longacre Lawson had two children, Holly Glen Elston and Michael Elston. Daughter Dora Jane married Carl Dennis and had three daughters, Carol Ann Morrison, Patricia Arlene Porter and Victoria Husa, and a son, Carl Dennis, Jr., who died in 1979. John J. Longacre, Jr. had five children: Kathleen Diane, John David, Paul Douglas, Roy Lee and Kenneth Allan. John J. Longacre, Sr. died in 1950. John J. Longacre, Jr., died in 1986 and is buried in Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.