KENI Radio Building
a.k.a. AHRS Site No. ANC-361
1777 Forest Park Dr., Anchorage, AKThe KENI Building, built in 1947-1948, is an excellent example in Anchorage of Art Deco style architecture that was popular around the United States from the 1920s through the 1940s. Radio station KENI signed on the air on May 2, 1948, and has transmitted from the same building every day since. The KENI Building is one of only a few major commercial buildings in Anchorage built before 1950 that is still used for its original purpose.
Austin E. "Cap" Lathrop planned to start a radio station in Anchorage in the early 1940s. Lathrop was one of Alaska's leading public figures and a business and industry entrepreneur during the first half of the twentieth century. Among other business ventures, Lathrop had an "entertainment empire" of movie theatres and had several communications ventures including radio stations and several newspapers. Lathrop started his first radio station, KFAR, in Fairbanks in 1939.
Lathrop's plans to construct the radio station and another Anchorage commercial building, the Fourth Avenue Theatre (listed in the National Register of Historic Places) were interrupted by World War II. After the war, Augie Hiebert, Lathrop's engineer, came from Fairbanks to Anchorage to oversee the construction of the radio station. The builder, Al Swalling, began construction that month although the title to the property was not transferred until August 22, 1947. The building was finished. in April 1948.
On May 2, 1948, the radio station signed on the air. It was the fifth station in Alaska, and the second in Anchorage. Anchorage was the first city in Alaska to boast of more than one radio station. KENI has been on the air every day since. The station's tower is the oldest commercial radio tower still standing in Anchorage.
Bibliography
Carberry, Michael E., Patterns of the Past: An Inventory of Anchorage Heritage Resources. (Anchorage: Municipality of Anchorage, Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1979).
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.