Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry

The Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry originates in June 1967, when the Centennial Aviation Progress Museum Committee first convened under Jack Peck to gather Alaska’s aviation history for the state’s centennial celebrations. Within a year the project transferred to state control and broadened its scope to all Alaska transportation, eventually becoming the traveling Centennial Train of six World War II troop cars. A fire on 5 September 1973 destroyed 85–90 percent of the collection, prompting a relocation in 1976 to an 8,000 sq ft building at the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer, where state funding of $80,000 arrived in 1977. After the Alaska State Fair announced in 1985 that it would not renew the museum’s lease—set to expire in 1987—the institution renamed itself the Museum of Alaska Transportation & Industry and began seeking a new site. In October 1990 it moved to a 10‑acre parcel it had purchased on Jacobsen Lake near Wasilla, where it remains today.