The sudden loss of the S.S. Aleutian in 1929 was a major news event. Word traveled from the cannery at Larsen Bay to Seward, and from there to newspapers in Seattle , home of the Alaska Steamship Company. The dailies in Seward and Anchorage were the first to break the story in print, running detailed accounts of the accident on Monday, the day after the disaster.

Papers in Juneau , Fairbanks and Seattle picked up the news on Tuesday, and soon the story of the Aleutian ’s tragic end was front-page news in major cities across the country.

Here are contemporary 1929 press accounts of the loss of the Aleutian , taken from selected newspapers. Just like news stories today, many of the so-called “facts” of the accident as reported in the press later turned out to be incorrect, so keep that in mind as you read them. Spelling and grammar is shown as printed in the original story.

Anchorage Daily Times

Seward Gateway Times