#Flashback Friday: The Great Land—Photos of the Exchange in Alaska

In July 1940, the first World War II PX in Alaska opened in three storage tents, a small beginning of what would soon become an exchange system spread across the vast state. Here are some photo highlights from the past 83 years.

At the top of this story is the post exchange at Fort Greely, Kodiak Island, Alaska, circa 1943. The original Fort Greely, which included the pictured post exchange, was a World War II coastal installation from 1941-1944. In 1955, the Fort Greely name was assigned to a U.S. Army post near Fairbanks.

The first PX for troops in Alaska was located at Fort Richardson/Elmendorf Airfield, which is now known as Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. This photo shows the Elmendorf Airfield Exchange in 1946.

U.S. Soldiers buy their personal necessities, such as cigarettes, candy and magazines, from a railway PX in a photo from the World War II era. They were guarding 500 miles of railroad track critical to the movement of military supplies during World War II.

A post exchange at Adak Island in 1943. By 1942, exchanges were strategically located in the Aleutians, Kodiak, Fairbanks, Cold Bay, Seward and elsewhere to serve GIs defending the region from a Japanese attack.

This 1961 photo shows a mobile field Exchange at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks.

About 5:35 p.m. on March 27, 1964, one of the most severe earthquakes in U.S. history struck the Anchorage area. This photo from the May 1964 Exchange Post shows the quake’s effect on the Elmendorf AFB main store, a $100,000 facility that had opened the day before. Five minutes after the quake, smashed merchandise filled the aisles, but structural damage was limited to fixtures torn from the ceiling. Although customers and associates were in the store when the quake struck, no one was injured; the store manager and the assistant manager, who were in the office on the mezzanine, crawled down stairs to the main floor, avoiding crashing file cabinets. When they got to the main floor, they were the only people left in the Exchange.

Motor vehicle operator Amos Jeffery with Alaskan mountains in the background in a 2018 photo. Jeffery, who is still based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, has driven more than a half-million miles for the Exchange. An Army Veteran who served in both Gulf Wars, he told the Exchange Post in 2018 that he drives in snow eight months a year, often in temperatures well below zero, and that he has had to dodge moose, caribou, bears and porcupines crossing in front of his truck. “But when you have the world’s Army and Air Force customers counting on you, the job of getting the products to them is so much easier,” Jeffery said. “I know what they’re going through because I was once one of them.” To read the whole story, click here.

This photo of an Express at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska—taken by warehouse worker foreman Krista Kelley on a January 2022 morning when it was 47 degrees below zero—is the most popular photo ever on @shopmyexchange Instagram. The Exchange currently operates stores and other facilities at Eielson, Forts Greely and Wainwright, and Clear Space Force Station, all in or near Fairbanks; and at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, to the south in Anchorage.