John “Jack” Sturgus, a 60-year-old white male, died on February 20, 1921, in Anchorage, Alaska. In a city still shaking off its frontier edges, he had only recently been sworn in as Anchorage's first police chief, a one-man department charged with bringing order to a restless railroad town. That winter night he was found down an alley off Fourth Avenue, near the back entrances of downtown storefronts, mortally wounded by a single shot from his own sidearm.
The city's response was imme
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