Modeling Old Valdez: A Tuesday Night History Talk with the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive

Susan Heuer discusses the model of Old Town she built for the Valdez Museum.
Photo by Kyle Klause.

By Kyle Klause

Every fourth Tuesday of the month the Valdez Museum hosts an event happily named “Tuesday Night History Talks.” Past topics have included Native Alaskans in the region, the Gold Rush Era, and survivor accounts of the 1964 earthquake. This past fourth Tuesday (June 22), the museum hosted Susan Heuer, the designer and builder of the Valdez Old Town model located in the museum annex facility located at 436 South Hazelet Ave. 

Susan had recently moved to Valdez in the mid 1990s when she was approached for the contract to construct the old town model. Eager for the work, she immediately began researching records kept in the museum archive and interviewing the people who had lived in Old Town Valdez. 

“I used to walk the town and introduce myself to people saying, ‘Hi, I’m Susan. I’m new in town, would you like to tell me about the worst day of your life?’ It wasn't the smoothest introduction, but people here took it pretty well,” Heuer told a group of about two dozen attendees. “Soon all the Old Towners knew who I was and were calling me at all hours about details they had remembered for the model.”

Starting in 1997, the project to create the Old Town model became a four-year-long passionate endeavor for Heuer as she painstakingly researched and crafted every detail on the model to accurately depict and represent the town in its state just prior to that fateful day on March 27 in 1964. 

Piles of scrap metal, scrap lumber, used tires, the various back yard vehicle “projects,” and even two tree houses all placed in historically accurate locations relative to the model are a few examples of the depth of detail Heuer put into the project. The model is represented at 1/20 scale, meaning every inch on the model equates to 20 feet in the real world. 

“The two biggest impressions that this project made on me were, first, the incredible strength that this community has to have overcome such a significant and catastrophic tragedy. It says wonders about the people who live here that they were able to come together and decide to completely relocate the town and keep it going rather than give up and move on,” Heuer stated at the talk. “The second was the Old Towners who have approached me since the completion of the project and thanked me, expressing that the model was what helped them feel a final sense of closure about the whole event.” 

The Valdez Museum and Historical Archive would like to extend an invitation to the people of Valdez and surrounding communities to request topics for future Tuesday Night History Talks. 

“We are always open to share the incredible resources of historical information we keep at the museum with the community and want to know what people are interested to learn more about,” said Faith Revell, the director of education for the museum. 

For recommendations of topics or other general questions about the Valdez Museum or Tuesday Night History Talks, you can call (907) 835-2764, check out valdezmuseum.org, or email Faith at educator@valdezmuseum.org.