Anne Hobbs Purdy

The “Tisha” of Robert Speck’s book published in 1976

Some of you who follow my posts about our cabin in Chicken, AK may have read the book, Tisha, written by Robert Speck. This book was loosely based on the life of a real school teacher in Chicken, AK. Her name was Anne Hobbs Purdy.

She wrote her another, based more on her time spent teaching in Eagle, titled Dark Boundary. This was published in 1954, and gave a much darker version of experiences as a school teacher in the territory.

Both versions are worth a read, and from talking with old timers in Chicken, Anne was quite the character. She was born in Missouri on November 10, 1901 and died in Dot Lake, AK on April 15, 1987. The Purdy family still owns property in Chicken. While I will be posting pictures of the “old town” of Chicken, I will not be posting any pictures or locations of the current Purdy family property out of respect for their privacy.

I put together this blog post for those of you who are fans of the book Tisha, but have never made it to Chicken. This will also be the setting for some of my future stories in my horror series (should it become one-rap wood!).

We’ll start the tour with Jack Strong’s house. He had the contract to deliver mail and supplies to Chicken. He is the one who also “delivers” Anne to Chicken at the beginning of the story. His house was the largest and nicest in Chicken, also doubling as the General Store. As you can see in the picture, it has subsided over time into the permafrost.

Inside of Jack Strong’s house. furniture likely leftover from the time of Fairbanks Exploration

Maggie’s Road House

Maggie’s Roadhouse was the meeting Place for the town, where everyone would come together to gossip. It was also where they would get together after the dances on Saturday nights.

Cast Iron Stove original to the road house. This would have been brought in by dogsled. Fairbanks Exploration added electrical in the 1950's

Prep area, also orginal to the road house

View of “town” from the roadhouse

So if you have read Tisha, you know that Maggie was a busy-body and a trouble maker. She didn’t like that Anne had taken in two native kids. She also didn’t like that Anne and Fred (a native man) were flirting with each other. As you can see here, she would have had ample opportunity to spy on Anne at the school house. This plays into several key scenes in the novel Tisha.

Front view of Tisha’s schoolhouse

Entrance

View from north side, building is subsiding into permafrost

West side, can see entrances and windows that are closed off. This was a 2-story hotel in the late 1800’s before it was a schoolhouse. The second story caught fire and was demolished.

Inside of Tisha’s school house. Barrel stove is original.

Inside of Anne’s personal dwelling.

Jack Strong’s Warehouse across from Tisha’s schoolhouse

Inside the warehouse

“Management” Cabin for Fairbanks Exploration

Inside the “Management” Cabin

Unknown Structure

Could you imagine using this outhouse in winter? Record temperature for Chicken is -76 F.

Toad’s cabin and cache building.

Toad is featured in a couple of my blogs. He was one of the last residents to live in Chicken full time before it was finally completely abandoned. He worked for Fairbanks Exploration and stayed on as a caretaker when they pulled out in the 1960’s. He eventually moved to a different place a few miles outside Chicken. Last year he moved to Tok. Only one person lives in the “Old Town” Of Chicken during winter as a caretaker now to prevent vandalism.

Thanks for reading! I will be doing more posts about the 40-mile region and how it relates to my research on my Historical Fiction, A Drink of Darkness. I also have a few posts planned on what we found during our trip to Dawson City.

Originally published at https://dmshepard.com on August 12, 2019.