Here Is Where: When in Nome

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

As a native Washingtonian raised in sweltering summers (which I've grown to love), I have nothing but admiration for those who can endure prolonged, thermometer-freezing winters. "It can get down to 40 below here in the winter," my Nome, Alaska, taxi driver told me during the short drive from the airport to the hotel. He also gave me an impromptu tour of some of his favorite sites. "There's one of the oldest bars in Alaska, some say the oldest," he said as we passed the Board of Trade Saloon.

The temperature was 50 degrees when I arrived, but it felt much colder in the drizzling rain. Most of the states I've visited so far have been in the 80s or 90s (Arizona was 110, South Dakota 70), and I didn't pack pants or long-sleeved shirts for this 50-state journey, just shorts and T-shirts.

I was prepared to stay warmly huddled in the hotel throughout my brief trip to Nome, which was really just a jumping off point to a remote Alaskan village I needed to visit. But I was starving by the time I finished packing, so I outlined a daring plan: I would race down Nome's main ("Front") street as quickly as possible, buy enough food at the local grocery store for both lunch and dinner, and then sprint back to the cozy safety of my hotel room.

Like many bold adventures, this one went quickly awry. Less than halfway to the grocery, I caught site of the town's local historical museum. Keep going, my freezing arms and legs pleaded. But I could not. This will only take a moment, I rationalized. It didn't. (It never does...)

After almost two hours of poring through binders full of old documents, photographs, maps, and property deeds, I had several intriguing little-known sites to find, most notably the boyhood home of James "Jimmy" Harold Doolittle.

While in Nome from 1900 to 1908, Doolittle learned to hunt and fight and he earned money as a paperboy delivering The Nome Nugget, which is still published and bills itself as "Alaska's Oldest Newspaper."

Doolittle would later become famous for leading 80 U.S. airmen on a World War II mission that both the Japanese and even some U.S. War Department personnel deemed impossible: strike Japan from the air. Launched off the USS Hornet on April 18, 1942, 16 modified B-25s flew deep into enemy territory and bombed military targets and weapons factories throughout Japan, ultimately killing about 50 and wounding several hundred. All but one of the B-25s crashed or had to be ditched (the only plane to survive made an emergency landing in the Soviet Union and was impounded by the Russians, despite being a wartime ally)--but, miraculously, 73 of the airmen survived.

Doolittle, himself, parachuted into China, which was also a U.S. ally at the time, and he was spared serious injury because he landed in a massive (but soft) dung heap. He initially thought the raid was a disaster because all of
the planes were lost, but from a propaganda perspective it was wildly successful--"Tokyo Bombed, Doolittle Doo'd It!" screamed one banner newspaper headline--and he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Doolittle later wrote in his autobiography about the rationale for the celebrated raid:

The Japanese had been told they were invulnerable. An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders.

There was a second, equally important, psychological reason for this attack...Americans badly needed a morale boost [after Pearl Harbor].

Doolittle's boyhood home was at 301 Third Avenue in Nome, but it's no longer there and the site is unmarked (picture, right).

No story about Nome would be complete without a mention of the town's more raucous days. In fact of all the places I've visited, Nome seems the proudest of its illicit past.

"Early Nome was home to many people of the 'sporting class' such as prostitutes, gamblers and conmen," one
prominently-placed plaque begins.

By 1900, the north side of Front Street was lined with saloons that concealed a block of small cabins where the prostitutes had set up shop. Nome's red-light district was a fine source of revenue during the gold rush. At one time, prostitutes were given the choice of being arrested or paying a monthly "fine" of $10. These fines were collected to help fund Nome's fire department and other city services.

The residents of Nome remain a rugged lot, and they are among the friendliest people I have ever met. The town didn't seem as wild and boisterous when I was there as in the early 1900s, which is probably a good thing, but there was one small indication in the morning paper that Nome still played by its own rules. The Nome Nugget had a front page story about a city council election between Joel Alowa and Lynne Schmidt. The result was a tie, so they decided the election the fairest way possible--they flipped a coin.

"Only in Nome," Schmidt said, after winning the toss.

Photos: Bar and church photo, Andy Carroll; Jimmy Doolittle photo, U.S. Naval Historical Center via Wikipedia

All text © Andrew Carroll

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