Rockwell Kent "Wilderness" Centennial Journal

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL 100 YEARS LATER by Doug Capra © 2018 September 22-24, 2018 During this period 100 years ago, Kent and his son experienced an especially rough storm season that brought torrential rains that resulted in damaging floods for Seward. Kent is in Seward now, probably staying at the Sexton Hotel. He’s gotten to know photographers Sylvia Sexton (whose father, George, owned the hotel) and Thwaites. He has also got to know Otto Boehm, a German mechanic who worked for hardware-man Jacob Graef, who sold Kent his dory and engine; Thomas Hawkins of Brown and Hawkins Store – he financed the fox farm and partnered with Olson; William E. Root, the postmaster, and his wife, Frances; and Don Carlos Brownell, one of Seward’s early pioneers and later Seward mayor and Territorial Senator. Kent is also courting the Seward Chamber of Commerce and they’re interested in him. The Alaska Railroad is still under construction in 1918, and Seward...