In March of this year my husband, Cecil, and I had the privilege of staying at the Alaska Heritage House Bed and Breakfast in Fairbanks, Alaska. Also known as the “Mary Lee Davis House,” the home was built in 1914 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. According to the Heritage House website, when first built “The house featured such modern marvels and territorial firsts as tongue and groove oak flooring, central heat from a coal burning furnace, a coal fueled kitchen stove, a central vacuum system, an indoor bathroom with hot and cold running water, a heated greenhouse, a masonry fireplace, insulated walls, ten foot ceilings, and massive furniture made from exotic woods by some of America’s best craftsmen.” The house has since been remodeled and modernized, while maintaining a decor that harkens to the pioneering days of Alaska. It also has an elegance brought about by antique furniture and art from outside of Alaska, which was typical of early settlers’ homes. Cecil and I were excited to find that many of the home’s original innovations were still there. For instance, the coal burning furnace was on display in the basement, and interior woodwork remains, crafted by the man who built the house, Arthur Williams. Even the original refrigerator used for food storage in the sprawling kitchen has simply been converted with a modern cooling unit. 

Still standing in its original location and having housed generations of people who have shaped the history of Alaska, the home made us feel as if we’d stepped into the chapters of a history book. One such person, Mary Lee Davis, is one of the lesser known historical figures in Alaska’s history. Her fame hardly lives up to the important contributions she made to Alaska, in particular, our statehood.

Mary Lee and her husband spent seven years in Fairbanks, from 1917 to 1924. From her documented observations Mary Lee wrote multiple books, intending to give people a true perspective of what life in Alaska was really like. Many people outside Alaska had the misconception that Alaska was primarily made up of gold rush boom towns, full of stampeding miners in a barely habitable climate. To prove her point, in one of her books Mary Lee recalled how filmmakers came to Fairbanks to shoot a movie and had to build a dance hall because, ironically, there wasn’t one in Fairbanks at the time. Dance halls and the like were what people expected to see in Alaska. Mary Lee had the same misconceptions before moving to Fairbanks. Instead, she was amazed to discover a community of people resolute in maintaining a permanent home. They didn’t want their existence dependent on the boom and bust nature of gold rushes, and they saw the long-lasting value of living in Alaska.

Mary Lee immediately felt at home in Alaska, and became engaged in the community. Among her list of accomplishments and influences Mary Lee was on the board of directors for the first library in Fairbanks, she wrote many articles for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and handled publicity for Fairbanks’ Red Cross chapter. Her husband was a geologist working for the federal Bureau of Mines and did a lot of work in Alaska mapping its extensive mineral resources. Mary Lee would accompany him as he travelled the territory, and had many opportunities to marvel at and appreciate Alaska.

After Mary Lee and her husband moved to Washington D.C., when his assignment in Alaska ended, she began publishing her books about Alaska. They were very popular, and for people living on the east coast, her work was seen as highly credible because she had actually lived in Alaska. In the book, A Place of Belonging, written by Phyllis Movius, the author tells how Mary Lee Davis’ first book, Uncle Sam’s Attic, was meant “to influence the federal government in its decision making about the territory.” Movius reveals that Mary Lee’s efforts were a success because the book was supposedly given to all of the congressmen and senators in Washington, prompting a visit to Alaska by a congressional delegation. Mary Lee continued to affect the way people in Washington D.C. thought of Alaska. She gave lectures, wrote articles for national magazines, and published more books that emphasized Alaska’s worth and its people. Mary Lee valued the fact that Alaska was inhabited by people who lived there not only to earn their fortune, but to make it their permanent home. In Uncle Sam’s Attic, Mary Lee writes about the early pioneers of Alaska during the transitional time between gold rushes and settlement. Of those who made the decision to stay in Alaska she wrote, “… they wished hard, for a good place to settle in, to colonize, to work honestly and loyally for: a place of permanent human habitation and of possible future development, and not a mere treasure house to pillage quickly.” Mary Lee had concluded that Fairbanks was a result of this wish. From my experience as a life-long Alaskan, Mary Lee Davis was right. Although Alaska is still a place people can temporarily come to and earn wages significantly higher than they could receive elsewhere, there are even more people who come to Alaska to escape the crush of the lower 48 and settle in a place that can feel like home in a matter of minutes. 

Looking through the writings by and about Mary Lee Davis caused me to reflect, not for the first time, upon the people throughout history whose efforts and perseverance made Alaska what it is today. People, like Mary Lee Davis, who realized Alaska needed to be more than a neglected territory, and that there was wealth in both resources and beauty within its borders. The Alaska Heritage House Bed and Breakfast really lives up to its name. The word heritage essentially means, an inheritance. After staying in a house that was celebrating over one hundred years of existence, I felt a special connection to the early settlers of Alaska—people like Mary Lee Davis with her instrumental advocacy and devotion to Alaska. Her house was a tangible reminder of the many people we have to thank for our inheritance.