Post #541573 by TabooDan on Fri, Jul 9, 2010 9:52 PM

Now, I wonder if we have any TC'ers up in Anchorage as they would be able to find out alot more about this cool looking tropical escape! I think there's information to find we just gotta get someone up there to do some snooping.

A little more info. I found online while trying to narrow down the address of this place was that the owners name of the South Seas Club was a Walt Gronert. I could not find anymore information on the owner or narrow down the exact time line of this establishment.

It definitely was open early and was pre-tiki. It sure is hard to find info. on a place this old. The great photos that Unga Bunga posted above of the interior and outside were from 1942 or 1943 and possibly earlier than that. That's pretty much all I can find out.

However....... I did come across something interesting as I was digging around a little more. Bare with me here!

In my search, I came across a Dog Sled Race that goes down 4th Ave in Anchorage. Whether or not this Dog Sled Race is annual or goes through this part of town yearly, I do not know.
I could only really find one race that seems to happen yearly and that is called the "Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race". This annual race only seems to have started happening in 1973 but I have seen photos of dog races down 4th Ave. in Anchorage throughout the 40's, 50's and 60's. I am not sure if these are a specific race or not, but it seems these races also happened for events as well.

I know you're thinking, what the hell is this Canuck talking about??!!
Well hang in there!

The "Iditarod" Dog Sled Race does have a historic "Ceremonial Start".
I found that: "The race starts on the first Saturday in March, at the first checkpoint on Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage. A five-block section of the street is barricaded off as a staging area, and snow is stockpiled and shipped in by truck the night before to cover the route to the first checkpoint".
So there's that 4th Avenue again!

Well, in what I think is the late 1940's, I found this photo of a dog race down on, you guessed it, 4th Avenue:

Do you see anything we might be interested in??

Hard to make out in this photograph but what about this one:

See it?? Look at the man in the foreground and look to the building directly in front of his hat. I see a nice big Palm Tree sign above that building!!!

And here's another view:

I haven't found a real good one yet, but you can see it for sure.

That's a pretty cool looking sign for some joint up in Alaska!! You can tell from the photos of the interior decor and the menu art that this place was very well done. We're talking over 60 years ago!!

Now what I thought was funny about that Palm Tree sign is that in this photo, which was done the same time as the interior photos of the South Seas, there is no sign:

The building would be about in that middle section on the left side just behind the Cleaners sign. Okay fine, they could have added the Palm Tree later but I don't think they did. I think the South Seas Bar closed and changed names.

The South Seas Bar was now the Seven Seas Club!
In the pictures above with the dogs, which I think are late 1940's, the name change has already happened and whoever was running the place now, wanted to keep the same tropical theme going and probably added a few things. Or maybe it was the same owner? Hard to say yet.

Here's the first photo I've ever seen of the Seven Seas Club:

Looks like they didn't change too much to me!! This picture is from 1952!
Wonder if that's the owner behind the bar? The description that went with this photo was "View of customers in Seven Seas bar in Anchorage, Alaska. Interior showing bar. (Publicity shot, interior with people). Feb. 20, 1952".
So, later date, same place, same decor, different name.

Looks like we got another place to look into now!!!
Mahalo, TabooDan