Anchorage Police Department

Anchorage Police Department

During the early years when the city of Anchorage was just a tent city, the United States Marshals handled the law enforcement in the city of Anchorage. Even when Anchorage was incorporated as a first class city on the 23rd of November the year 1920, the United States Marshals still handled Anchorage.

After one month, the City Council appointed a "one-man Anchorage Police Department" to "John J. Sturgus" as the Chief of Police and started on the 1st of January the year 1921 with a salary of two hundred dollars a month. Unfortunately, he was shot and killed six weeks by his own gun on the 20th of February 1921. The City Council then offered a thousand dollars reward, along with an additional $250 from the then mayor of Anchorage and a hundred dollars each from the City Council members with a total of $1,950. No one however received the reward because the one who shot Sturgus was never arrested. The death of the first Chief of Police of the Anchorage Police Department was the first ever unsolved case of the Anchorage Police Department. After that unfortunate event, many men served the Anchorage Police Department as Chief of Police.

By the year 1926, the City Council then hired night watchmen on long winter months which were from the month of October thru March. And on June 19 of 1935, property owners of the city of Anchorage petitioned to the City Council to provide a 24-hour police organization. The City Council granted the petition and the first Anchorage Police Department was assembled.

However, it wasn't until August of 1930 that the Anchorage Police Department got its first vehicle. Before that, the Anchorage Police Department occasionally used and borrowed cars from the citizens of Anchorage or they use the taxi. And on April of 1941, the City Council bought the Anchorage Police Department it's ever first new and fully equipped police car.

When the United States military began building bases in Anchorage on the thirties and forties, its population soared from a little over 4,000 to 30,000 on the fifties. The city of Anchorage and the Greater Anchorage Area Borough (GAAB) merged forming the "Municipality of Anchorage" on 1975. The Anchorage Police Department was then contracted to serve police service to the Borough. With that, the area of responsibility of the Anchorage Police Department increased from 31 square miles to 110 square miles.

At present, the Anchorage Police Department is the largest police department all over Alaska, covering over 159 square miles and an estimated 227,000 citizens. The Anchorage Police Department has been nationally acknowledged for its solvability rate and techniques. The Anchorage Police Department still is dedicated to serve and protect the Municipality of Anchorage.