Ed Liebenthal was USDA district extension agent on the Kenai Peninsula. He served an area from Homer to Hope. His main duties were to serve these communities in all aspects of living; home building, barn construction, clearing land, well drilling, dairying, poulterying, seed and grain selection, marketing, etc. He organized 4-H clubs and homemakers clubs. As a matter of fact he extended all the information from the USDA as it applied, especially to the homesteader, the first occupant on native land. He was raised on a farm in Wisconsin and had a great deal of very practical knowledge. Upon arriving on the Kenai Peninsula a government program was enacted only for veterans. They would receive $100.00 monthly after attending weekly meetings with the agricultural agent, in this case, Ed. and sometimes $100.00 was all the cash some homesteaders existed on at the time. Ed first settled in the Ninilchik area, and traveled to meetings in the Kenai, Soldotna, and Sterling areas, which often meant traveling the beach in his WWII army Jeep. The Sterling Highway was barely under construction in that direction and often impassable. Incidentally the $100.00 was all the cash some homesteaders existed on at the time. Before long he married Susie Cooper of Ninilchik. He took her children as his own, and a son was born to them. They settled on a homestead of his closer to Anchor Point on Cottonwood Trail. He was a fine gentleman in every sense of the word. This picture shows Ed evidently judging a garden vegetables display under a tent. He is wearing an Alaska tuxedo, then a very popular green, hard twill suit worn either formally or informally.
Edward Liebenthal
Cheechako News
Ninilchik, Alaska
1951
Cheechako file photo
B&W print
11 x 8.5 m
good
Marge Mullen
1/22/2001
KPC Anthropology Lab
All of the photographs in this collection are for personal, educational, or research use only. These images cannot be used for political, commercial, or advertising purposes. At the present time the college does not have the capabilities to reproduce prints from the image scans. For technical inquiries, or to report errors, please contact webmaster@alaska.edu.