National Register Listing

Civil Works Residential Dwellings

a.k.a. Brown's Point Cottages; Corps of Engineers Houses; AHRS Site Nos. ANC-00048 & ANC-01205

786 and 800 Delaney St., Anchorage, AK

Built in 1941 for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers top officers in Anchorage, the Civil Works Residential Dwellings are a reminder of the huge military involvement in Anchorage that began during World War II. The houses are associated with Captain (later Brigadier General) B.B. Talley who was in charge of all of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction projects in Alaska between 1941 and 1943. World War II caused the city of Anchorage to grow rapidly. Of interest, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not build the Civil Works houses on Fort Richardson but, at the invitation of the Alaska Railroad general manager, in the Government Hill area. The land chosen for the houses offers a panorama of the Upper Cook Inlet, including Mount Susitna and the Alaska Range. The period of significance starts when Talley and his wife moved into one of the houses in 1941 and ends when he left Anchorage in 1943. The houses represent the impact on the Anchorage home front during World War II. They are among the few properties in the city built during the World War II era that hardly have been altered.

Captain Benjamin B. Talley came to Alaska in September 1940 to supervise the construction of an airfield at Yakutat for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After completing that assignment, he was reassigned as Alaska Area Engineer. He moved to Anchorage on January 7, 1941. Talley supervised the construction of Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Field at Anchorage, Ladd Field near Fairbanks, airfields at Umnak and Adak in the Aleutians, and the base and airfield at Annette Island in Southeast Alaska.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Talley became officer-in-charge of military construction in Alaska. He oversaw the work of 14,000 troops in the Army's engineering units in the Aleutians. In addition to the airfields and bases, Talley supervised the construction of a railroad spur to connect the Alaska Railroad with a deep water port on Prince William Sound, Whittier, and the construction of a freight depot there. His responsibilities eventually included twenty-eight of a total of thirty-nine wartime construction projects around Alaska. In mid-June 1943, Talley, then a lieutenant colonel, left Alaska to assist with D-Day preparations in Europe. The Aleutian Campaign, to retake the Alaska islands of Kiska and Attu from the Japanese, was almost won.
Soldiers

In 1940 Anchorage was a small town with a population of approximately 4,000. The military build-up during World War II caused a population explosion. Over a two-year period, 20,000 construction workers arrived in Anchorage. were forced to live in tents throughout the fall of 1940 until barracks were built. Anchorage lacked the infrastructure for a large population.

Because of the lack of housing, Talley had the two houses built on Delaney Street to house his family and the Resident Engineer of Fort Richardson. He later recalled that Colonel Otto Ohlson, General Manager of the Alaska Railroad, told him the railroad owned the land and recommended the site. Talley did not believe anything was put in writing. Captain Craig Smyser was the Resident Engineer and lived in the second house. Talley selected the design for the houses. He had lived in a similarly designed house while at Mud Mountain Dam near Fort Lewis, Washington. Allowing no changes to the design, the construction took place between April and July 1941. That December a mobile radar was placed in the yard. Talley moved the men sleeping in pup tents monitoring the radar to the basement of his house until the station was moved.

Captain and Mrs. Talley entertained many officers who visited Alaska at the house on Delaney Street. General Simon B. Buckner, in charge of the Alaska Defense Command (all Army, Army Air Corps, and Navy forces in Alaska), was a frequent guest. After the Battle of Attu to retake it from the Japanese in 1943, the Corps of Engineers reassigned Talley, now a major, to Europe where he was involved in the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach at Normandy.

The houses stand at Brown's Point, named in honor of Jack and Nellie Brown who arrived in the area in 1912. Jack was employed by the U.S. Forest Service and surveyed the first homestead in the Anchorage area. Brown's Point Park was dedicated to the Browns in 1960 and lies to the south of the southernmost cottage (786 Delaney Street). Because of this association, the houses are locally referred to as the Brown's Point Cottages. Many Anchorage residents know the cottages and associate them with the Government Hill neighborhood. The Alaska Railroad owns the land where the houses sit. Between April 29, 1941, and August 1, 1980, the property was leased at no cost to the Corps of Engineers. The Corps housed employees there during this time. For a while, the houses were unoccupied and fell into disrepair. In October 1997, the railroad gave the houses to the Municipality of Anchorage. The city currently rents them to individuals.

The two houses stand, little altered from their 1941 appearance. They are important and among the few reminders in Anchorage of the World War II era that dramatically changed the community. After the war, Anchorage continued to grow rapidly, first as the military expanded its presence as part of the Cold War defense, then as headquarters for oil companies after commercial deposits were discovered in the 1950s on the Kenai Peninsula and in Cook Inlet, and in 1968 on the North Slope.

General Talley returned to live in Alaska in the 1960s.

He died in the 1990s. The Civil Works Residential Dwellings are the World War II properties still standing most directly associated with him in Anchorage where he had his headquarters.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2004.