JOHN CONRAD ANDERSON, Sr., known as “Cap’n Jack,” was born on August 11, 1899 in Bergen, Norway, the eldest son of Henry Anderson and Hannah Hansen. He grew up in Grays Harbor, Washington, where his father worked as a logger. He was nine years old when he served before the mast on a voyage to Australia on his father’s square-rigger.
In 1924, after service in the U.S. Navy during World War I and, later, in the Merchant Marine, Jack arrived at Seldovia. He came to Alaska to fish, but fishing was not paying well. He noticed the need for a shipping service and starting an operation in Seward. He operated a mail, freight, and passenger service from Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound ports to Kodiak, Dutch Harbor and other outposts on the Aleutian Chain, and from Seward and Seldovia to various Cook Inlet communities. In 1934, he acquired the mail boat Princess Pat, a yacht formerly used to convey wealthy hunting parties to Alaska, and operated up and down Cook Inlet carrying mail and passengers. In July 1938, the Seward Gateway advertised that Anderson & Sons Transportation was running between Seward and Anchorage. The family moved to Anchorage in 1938.
At some point, Jack married Helen Imogene Hampton who was born in Palisade, Colorado, in 1901. He and Helen had a son, John “Jack” C. Anderson, Jr., who was born in Seattle in 1923, and a daughter, Dorothy ANDERSON Warren, born in 1929.
In 1938, Jack and young Jack Anderson Jr, were operating the Cook Inlet mail and cargo run to Anchorage. They eventually built a booming family-owned tugboat business and a dock at the Port of Anchorage, which became Alaska’s largest commercial port.
The operations of Anderson & Sons Transportation were interrupted during World War II when the U.S. Army requisitioned the Princess Pat and the U.S. Navy took their second vessel, the Monterey, a 110-foot ship with berths for sixty persons and a cargo capacity of sixty tons which had been a former government submarine chaser. “Jack” Sr. sat out the war in Seattle, Washington.
After the war, Anderson & Sons Transportation started operations as Cook Inlet Tug & Barge, Inc., based in Anchorage. They expanded operations by carrying cargo between Cook Inlet and Puget Sound ports. They bought the Tiger, a retired U.S. Coast Guard cutter built in 1927, which was repowered and rebuilt as a tug. The two Andersons built their fleet to eight tugs and developed Anderson Dock, a cargo terminal in Anchorage. When larger companies such as SeaLand Services and Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE) began bringing in 750-foot container ships in 1964 and 1965, Cook Inlet Tug & Barge, Inc. entered the ship-assist business, using the Pacific Wind, a 1,300-horsepower tugboat.
Captain John “Jack” Sr. retired in 1970. He sold four of his tugs to the Red Stack Line, and passed the balance of the fleet and equipment on to Captain John “Jack” Jr. They sold the Anderson Dock and Terminal to North Star Stevedoring and concentrated on the tugboat business.
For four generations, the Anderson family has guided ships through upper Cook Inlet and into Anchorage’s harbor. In 2011, Cook Inlet Tug & Barge, Inc. was sold to Foss Maritime Company, a Seattle-based company with the country’s largest fleet of coastal tugs and barges. Cook Inlet Tug & Barge continued to operate as an independent subsidiary, with ten employees, and three tugs and one barge. Two members of the family, Captain Katrina Anderson and her brother, Garrett Anderson, continue the legacy of their great-grandfather, Captain John “Jack” Anderson Sr. by guiding boats through the silty waters of upper Cook Inlet.