Anchorage’s Visitor’s Cabin is short on stature, but tall on pedigree

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Every year, around 180,000 tourists walk through the doors of Anchorage’s log cabin visitor’s center.

Standing downtown at the corner of 4th Avenue and F Street for over 70 years, it’s hard to miss the humble one-story building with the sod roof. Just look for the tourists from all over the world taking pictures out front.

Constructed in 1954 down in Homer, with trees from the Kenai Peninsula, then taken apart and trucked to Anchorage to be put back together again, this little cabin has had a front row seat to Alaska’s statehood and the pipeline boom. Modern buildings are sprouting up all around it.

But just because it’s small physically doesn’t mean it doesn’t come from strong genes. This log cabin was designed by Edwin Crittenden. An Alaskan architect responsible for many of the landmark buildings in Anchorage, Fairbanks and on the North slope. Just a few of those are the Federal Building in Anchorage, the Egan Convention Center, buildings at UAA and UAF, and the Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks.

Visitors to Anchorage see a building from the pages of a Jack London novel. What they don’t see is the building’s pedigree that allows it to stand shoulder to shoulder with the modern buildings around it.

The log cabin is run by Visit Anchorage and open pretty much year-round, except for the major winter holidays.

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