Ketchikan and the moon landing

Originally published in the Ketchikan Daily News, July 2019; written by Pat Tully

This Sunday, July 21 is the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. Some of us are old enough to remember the excitement of Apollo 11 in the summer of 1969. How did Ketchikan observe this momentous event?

The Library has issues of the Ketchikan Daily News in microfilm going back to 1934. The microfilm reel for the summer of 1969 has no newspaper for either Sunday, July 20 or Monday, July 21. Back then the paper was not published on Sundays, but normally was published on Mondays. Why not on Monday, July 21, 1969?

Announcements in the July 19th Daily News point to the reason: “Heckman’s / The Clothes Tree Will Remain Closed On Monday 21st Due to the Moon Landing.” And another: “In Observance of the Governor’s Proclamation Celebrating Man’s First Landing on the Moon, The Ketchikan Branch of the National Bank of Alaska and the First National Bank of Ketchikan Will Be Closed Monday, July 21.”

President Richard Nixon declared Monday, July 21 to be a National Day of Participation and urged that all Americans be given a holiday to celebrate the moon landing. Governor Keith Miller reinforced this national proclamation with one specific to Alaska.

Many Ketchikan residents had the day off that fateful Monday fifty years ago. But could they watch live coverage of Armstrong’s first steps on the moon? A July 17, 1969 article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner provides a clue. The front-page article, “Live Television Highly Successful in Anchorage,” notes: “Until now, Anchorage has had no live network television. Ketchikan, however, picks up some telecasts relayed out of Prince Rupert, B.C.” Ketchikan and Anchorage may have been the only two Alaska communities to offer live coverage; other communities had to be content with film coverage that was up to a day old.

The July 19th Ketchikan Daily News contained many notices relating to the moon landing: “The picnic scheduled Monday by members of First Lutheran Church has been postponed because of the Apollo 11 telecast.” “There will be no Head Start classes Monday in observance of the lunar landing holiday.” “In line with other agencies which are observing a national day of participation in the Apollo expedition, the Post Office will suspend window service and delivery services on Monday.”

Not that the moon landing was the occasion of unalloyed joy, as illustrated by two articles published in the Daily News on July 22. In “Man Reaches Out to Pollute Moon,” AP science writer Alton Blakeslee expressed concerns about the equipment, supplies and bacteria left behind by the Apollo 11 crew. And in “Arguments Continue Over Worth of Space Program,” AP business analyst John Cunniff described the controversy over the cost of the space program, which at the time came to $24 billion.

But for the most part, the Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon were met with joy and celebration around the world—Ketchikan included.