My last note from Jack Miller showed up about a month ago. As usual, I opened it with curiosity. You never knew what Jack might put in an envelope and stick a stamp on.
That’s right. An envelope and a stamp.
Miller wasn’t caught up in the computer age, but that didn’t keep him from embracing the information age.
Miller, who died two weeks ago at age 71, was a pack rat whose most prized collection was information. Newspapers were his currency, a manual typewriter his instrument and the library his office.
He probably knew as much about Anchorage history as a single person could know. He made it his mission to share his knowledge - not just his opinions, mind you, but his knowledge - with Assembly members, School Board members, reporters and who knows who else.
Dan Sullivan said he got the first of many mailings from Miller the week after he made his debut as a member of the Anchorage Assembly. Former School Board member Peggy Robinson said she got her first letter shortly after she’d been elected. I started to hear from him soon after my picture started showing up in the paper three times a week.
“Jack was one of a kind,” Robinson said. “People would contact me about particular topics, but never on such wide-ranging things.” And unlike so many of the people politicians hear from, Miller never had an agenda to push. He sought to enlighten and entertain.
Sullivan’s “Miller file” includes letters that came with Xeroxed pages from the city charter, sent in the event lawmakers inadvertently (or advertently) overlooked mandates laid out in the document. Robinson received a copy of the Alaska Constitution too.
“He’d go to the library or the clerk’s office and find stuff,” said Tim Potter, a city planner who knew Miller for years. “He had just about every relevant document about key things in Anchorage development. He’d go, ‘Did you know that in 1950-something this was done, and no one seems to remember why?’ He had knowledge rivaling the expertise of the clerk’s office.”
Miller wasn’t just a student of Anchorage history, he was a maker of it. His father started M-B Contracting Co. Inc. in 1942 and Jack took over as president in 1965. He managed more than 250 road, bridge and runway projects and built more than 700 miles of roads throughout Alaska. He helped negotiate the labor agreement for the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline.
Most recently, he made news as the owner of “the Miller property,” the piece of land at the corner of Muldoon and DeBarr recently sold to Wal-Mart.
As a homeowner in that part of town, I’m not thrilled about the two gi-normous stores planned for the lot, but I don’t for a minute blame Jack. The land was his, he was ready to enjoy the fruits of a lifetime’s labor and he didn’t want to spend years selling the land a parcel at a time. Wal-Mart was one of the few players willing and able to buy all 51.9 acres.
We talked about the Wal-Mart purchase on occasion, but we talked more about sports or military history. When he learned I was writing about an accomplished but little-known basketball player from Metlakatla named Wally Leask, who played in the 1940s, he was captivated.
Within days I received a fat manila envelope filled with clippings about Leask from tattered Seattle newspapers. Miller had gotten in touch with an old college buddy in the Seattle area, given him an assignment, and sent me the results. The effort enriched my article immensely.
Over the years he sent me clippings and notes about assembly actions, World War II heroes, Alaska athletes and so much more. After Miller died, I learned that people all across town had been the recipients of clippings and anecdotes tailored to their particular interests.
How he maintained this mountain of information is a mystery.
J.R. Eker, his nephew, can’t remember a time when Miller didn’t have stacks of newspapers in his home, his office, his truck.
“He’d fill up one desk and then move on to another one,” Eker said. “His old Ford truck was so stacked with newspapers, you couldn’t get in it.
“He had a system; we just don’t know what it was.”
Eker said he tried to get his uncle computerized, with no luck. “His computer is a post-it board,” he said, covered with notes but seldom used.
My last note from Miller showed up about a month ago. Inside the envelope was a story about former Washington governor Dan Evans, a friend of Miller’s and a man revered for his integrity.
“Given that you have had to write very negative and depressing stories about our political scene of late, I thought you might like to read one that is on a higher plane,” Miller’s note said. “I don’t think there is a story in this for you, but I thought you might like to read that there are higher quality people out there.”
Within days after sending the article and the note, Miller suffered the stroke that eventually killed him. Left behind is a treasure trove of articles and documents that help tell the story of Anchorage, and mailboxes that don’t hold nearly as many surprises as when Jack was here to fill them.
Beth Bragg’s opinion column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.
