Black freedmen among first soldiers in Alaska

Gold Rush: not a phrase thought to be synonymous with law and order. When the Klondike Gold Rush took hold in Alaska, Company L was deployed to the area to ease tensions as gold-seekers often gambled, brawled and instigated conflict with the Indigenous Chilkat Tlingit people.

Many of the troops in Company L were Black freedmen from the South. Building roads and bridges, enforcing the law and more, the soldiers of Company L were some of the first members of the U.S. Military to arrive in Alaska and initiated a long relationship between the military and the state.

– Kelsey Fiedler, The Alaska 100