"No-Man's Land, Unincorporated"

Rusty and Larry Lancashire work on their homestead in Ridgeway, between Soldotna and Kenai.

NO-MAN’S LAND, UNINCORPORATED

MAY 2009

In 1959 and 1960, the communities of Soldotna and Kenai were busy forging new identities. Kenai, gobbling up as much land as possible in its attempt to become a first-class city, stretched its boundaries south nearly to Site 17. Soldotna, hoping to become a fourth-class city, was carefully drawing and redrawing its boundaries to create the best chance for successful incorporation.

In April 1960, Soldotna’s gerrymandering paid off, as on a 35-33 vote the community’s incorporation bid passed. A month later, Kenai’s efforts also succeeded, and the boundaries for each new city were established.

Stuck between these two land-hungry communities, however, was an unnamed and unclaimed swath of land, nearly 18 square miles of sparsely inhabited hills and old river terraces. And living in this place were scattered citizenry mostly opposed to incorporation by anyone. In fact, according to Katherine Parker’s account in A Larger History of the Kenai Peninsula, “Shortly after the two cities incorporated, (the) strip of no-man’s land between them put up their own sign, ‘Ridgeway—Unincorporated.’”

“Ridgeway” was the name given to this area dominated by a large ridgeline covered in deciduous trees, an area known previously by some local residents as “Ironsville,” after two of its earliest settlers, Jack and Margaret Irons. The new name was selected in a community meeting shortly before the “Unincorporated” sign was erected.

Martha Merry, who grew up in Ridgeway, remembers that her parents, Larry and Rusty Lancashire attended the naming meeting: “Mom and Dad went to the meeting, when everybody in Ridgeway got together, and everyone proposed names. Mom really wanted it to be called ‘Turnbuckle.’ A turnbuckle is something that holds things together. But it was voted down.”

Rusty was so “irritated” that her idea was rejected, Merry said, that she used the name for a pottery business she was just starting up—Turnbuckle Enterprises. Merry said the business “never got to be more than just a hobby,” but Rusty’s idea didn’t die there. Another Ridgeway resident, George Denison, later created a subdivision in the area called Turnbuckle Estates.

Longtime Soldotnan Al Hershberger said that Ridgeway resident Bettie Lande once explained the final name choice this way: “We are neither Kenai nor Soldotna, but straddle the ridge between them.”

Other residents in Ridgeway at the time included Clarence Lande, Shirley Denison, O.B. Thomas, and the families of Emmett and Betty Karsten, Loren and Dorothy Stewart, Royle and Mickey Parker, Ben Grilley, and Tom and Bea Southard. Over the intervening years, these folks and subsequent Ridgeway residents thwarted many attempts at annexation, mostly by the City of Soldotna, said Hershberger, who has lived in Soldotna for about 60 years.

Longtime Soldotna resident Al Hershberger works the ham radio in the 1960s.

Soldotna itself was a loosely affiliated collection of homesteads, some subdivided and others still intact, when Alaska became a state in 1959 and the push for incorporation began. According to Hershberger, Frank Mullen was a “prime mover” in the effort, which set out to accomplish three main objectives: provide the community with more orderly growth; establish a means of taxation to pay for firefighters, police officers, and other city services; and solve the area’s animal-control problem.

According to Hershberger, Soldotna was overrun by dogs, and several community members had taken it upon themselves to reduce the problem with firearms.  Mary France, who lived with her husband Dan in Soldotna until about 1960, said that people from elsewhere were using Soldotna as a sort of doggie dumping ground.

“There were lots of dogs,” France said. “There were many, many, many—and then some more many’s—that just showed up in Soldotna. I don’t know why. There was a lot of dogs in Kenai, and I think a lot of people just figured, well, there weren’t as many dogs in Soldotna, so…. It just seemed like that’s what happened. (Dogs) would show up on somebody’s door. They’d drop them there by the bowling alley, and just all over. They’d just drive out, drop them out of the car, and be gone.”

Regardless of the problems and the needs in Soldotna, however, people living in some of the outlying areas weren’t all that interested in more regulation and more taxation. Trying to force incorporation on the people in these areas worked counter to the incorporation efforts, since anyone included inside the boundaries would be allowed to vote and could thereby derail Soldotna’s plans.

Kenai, on the other hand, had a large central base and had been well established as a community for many decades. It could more easily incorporate “outside” land because it had the votes in its core to succeed.

So in Soldotna, Mullen and other pro-incorporation residents began configuring and reconfiguring the lines that would establish the new city boundaries. Lines were drawn carefully to include those in favor of incorporation and to exclude those who were not.

For instance, the city line followed the bridge across the Kenai River; then, on the south bank, the home of Paul and Anna Tachick (east of the highway) was omitted from the city because the Tachicks opposed incorporation. Instead, the city line bent westward to include some Kalifornsky Beach land because the few residents there were more favorable toward the city. On the river’s northern bank, Soldotna also stretched eastward to just past where Birch Ridge Golf Course is today.

On Soldotna’s north side, the end line was drawn down Knight Drive to omit Ridgeway. According to Hershberger, Ridgeway “was intentionally omitted because there were too many no votes in the area.”

Ridgeway today is thriving in spite of remaining unincorporated. The 2000 U.S. Census stated that Ridgeway, which is termed a “census-designated place,” had a population of 1,932 residents—part of 715 households and 536 families. The population density was 116 people per square mile, and the median family income was just over $50,000.

The annexation attempts may not be over, but for now Ridgeway is still holding firm.