Tisha

Tisha

Alaska was as remote as the moon, as roistering and lawless as the Gold Rush. And a pretty young schoolteacher from Colorado like Anne Hobbs was even rarer than nuggets. "So appealing are the people here, even the villainous ones; so dramatic is the landscape in which they act out their adventure; so pure is the moral conflict that forms the story's back- bone, and so honest is its sentimentality-that I man- aged to suspend all my disbelief as I read it. And it was with pleasure that I raced through this good old fash- ioned yarn, hissing the villains, holding my breath at each succeeding catastrophe, and above all adoring 'plain old Anne Hobbs,' as she calls herself, the pretty slip of a nineteen-year-old who in 1927 had the courage not only to brave the Alaska wilderness as a teacher in a tiney gold-mining community called Chicken, but also to face down the community's violent disapporval when she dared to treat the local Indians as human beings..."

-Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times


The Old Town of Chicken

During the Time of Tisha

School was in session in Chicken from 1925 to 1928, and again in 1950 and 1951 in Chicken, when enough children resided in the community to warrant the hiring of a teacher by the territorial government. Anne Purdy taught there during the 1927-28 school year. The novel, Tisha, focuses on Anne's first year of teaching in Chicken, and has become quite popular on both the national and international levels, although local residents have responded less enthusiastically to it.


These pictures are of the ghost town today, and the current Purdy house. The map below shows the town as it was in 1928.

The Schoolhouse
Originally the Chicken Creek Hotel,
this building used to be two stories.

The Store
One of many building belonging to John Powers
(AKA Mr. Strong in Tisha

Anne Purdy's House
Anne Purdy lived here with her daughter Lynn.
Lynn continues to summer here.


The following is an autobiography by Anne Hobbs Purdy

 
I was born around 1908 in the back country of Prownington, Missouri. I was teaching in Oregon when I was given an offer to go to Alaska to teach. I have taught in many places such as Franklin Creek (3 years), Chenin (1 year), Tetlin Indian Village or reservation, Dot Lake and Eagle (6 to 7 years). Also taught in the desert in Claifornia at 29 Palms to wayward children, and Chicken, Alaska for 10 years to ten pupils.

In Eagle I married Fred Purdy and during the following years legally adopted 10 children. Chuck, Ethel, Doris, George, Marie, Eddie, Jack, Hank, Lynn and Barbara. Fred was a miner at Meyers Fork. He died in 1965 and was buried next to Doris his daughter. I have been an assistant to the Postmaster, managed road house in Eagle and started the Eagle Library. I am a sourgough of Chicken, Alaska, part and parcel of that great land of gold. I was priviledged to know many of the early sourdoughs before my time. Paul and Jim Bytell, Dick Mitchell, Jack Hawn, Bill Smeter, freigter on river with horse sleds carrying supplies, Ben Norval a very knowledgeable prospector and also a preacher when needed.

I have written two books, "Dark Boundry" in 1954 and "Tisha" in 1976. We live off the Taylor Hwy. at the end of the road in a big yellow house.

Marie became a deep sea diver and now works in a bank at Anchorage. Barbara traveled the world over, a fine geologist, and a professional photographer, lives in Anchorage most of the time. Jack was killed in Vietnam for nothing. Big Ed, a pilot, but made more money as a truck driver in Texas. George a brilliant and now president of oil company in Houston. Ethel lives in Texas as a professional artist and Hank lives in Fairbanks. Chuck died of TB after he had grown up. I have had 4 sons in the armed services. Doris died after, over 10 years of hospitalization and Lynn lives with me spending most of her time knitting.

-Anne Purdy

Chicken Alaska
Chicken Creek Saloon Hover
Chicken Creek Cafe
Chicken Alaska Online Store