ithin a few years of the sale of the first townsites, the growing community of Anchorage was attracting more and more professionals who were opening offices in the new town. One of those was William H. Rager, who opened his law practice soon after his arrival in Anchorage in 1920. Born in Frederick, Maryland in 1882, he came to Alaska from Montana, where he had been practicing law for some time. Katherine G. Dewald, born in Salem, Virginia in 1891, had a teaching career in Montana, which she left in late 1920 to marry William Rager in Anchorage. They had a son, William Jr., born in 1921.

William, Sr. first formed a law partnership with Jerry Murphy and later with M. J. Conroy, a former mayor of Anchorage. In the latter part of 1921, District Judge E. E. Ritchie appointed Rager to the position of United States Commissioner. He held that office until 1926, when he retired from public service to devote full time to his private law practice. Judge Ritchie was quoted as saying that Commissioner Rager was the only commissioner ever appointed by the judge who had no complaints registered against him.

William died in 1927, after which Katherine again began teaching school. In 1932, she moved to Seward where she taught high-school English and Latin. She later worked for the Corps of Engineers in Seward until she retired and moved back to Anchorage to be with her son. Katherine G. DeWald Rager died in 1960 and is buried in the Pioneer Tract, Anchorage Memorial Park along with her husband and their son, William Jr., who dies in 2005.