Part of an ongoing weekly series on Alaska history written by local historian David Reamer. Do you have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the end of this story.
Within the broader history of Alaska, Zelda King (1905-1936) is unmentioned and forgotten. In the lore of the Matanuska Valley, where she lived and worked during the last years of her life, she is a trivia known only to the most staunch local historians. Her presence in the historical record is equally scarce and elusive. From her birth to her death, her existence is documented primarily when she crosses paths with men, most sensationally in the form of her demise.
Zelda L. King was born to Arthur and Lois King in Mabton, Washington. In 1924, she earned a calligraphy teaching certificate and, in 1925, she completed her two-year teaching certification at what is now Eastern Washington University. From there, she taught in Mabton, Idaho, and Montana before moving north in the early 1930s.
In Alaska, he taught in Seward and then moved to the Matanuska Valley. He had been teaching there for about three years when the first settlers from the Matanuska colony began arriving in the spring of 1935. That December, he wrote about the first settlers in a letter to a Missoula, Montana, newspaper. She noted: “There is a very happy group here, and those who left were either sick or the type of person who would probably be dissatisfied anywhere.” Already a true Alaskan, her main complaint was about the road conditions, which she said were little more than “potholed mudholes” in the summer and fall.
King was young and popular in the community, where he caught the attention of Alvah Pilkenton, an accountant for the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corp., which oversaw the colony. On May 23, 1936, they were married in his boss’s apartment at the Anchorage Hotel. She wore a white floral satin dress with a bouquet of pea flowers and baby’s breath, watched by 15 of Palmer’s friends. Later, they celebrated at a dance at a roadhouse in Lake Spenard. For reasons that will become clear, she will from now on still be called by her maiden name.
She was born, taught, married and, to reveal the ending, died. She was a person, a woman of dreams and ambitions, failures and tragedies, but the historical record of her reflects almost nothing of the real individual, only a few scattered facts traced throughout the American West. Apart from her death, this narrative offers almost all of the documentation that survives. Her personality and character are lost in this way, as they are for most people outside of living memory.
It is generally easier to learn about men of the past than about women, something every family historian or amateur genealogist quickly realizes. Aside from technical difficulties, such as changing married names or calling wives by their husbands’ names, women have been less likely to achieve the kinds of positions in life that encourage broader and deeper coverage. Social brakes and barriers, glass ceilings and constantly evolving prejudices hindered and continue to impede this progress. In this way, King is more of an enigma than a real person, in the sense in which we can understand him today.
On November 11, 1936, that same night, after a hectic Armistice Day celebration, a single gunshot rang out in Palmer. A small group of locals rushed to Pilkenton’s house on the outskirts of town. King was slumped dead on the kitchen linoleum, one arm extended outward as if to break her fall. Aside from her bare feet, she was fully clothed. A drunken Pilkenton knelt before her head.
Three days later, the coroner’s jury ruled that King had committed suicide. The direct cause of her death was a .22 caliber rifle shot to the heart, an uncomfortable method at best for a woman of medium to short height. Today, it is standard forensic practice to compare the length of the deceased’s arms to that of the rifle from muzzle to trigger. When the arms are long enough to hold the rifle in position and reach the trigger, a suicide decision can be reached with greater confidence. Shorter arms, as is the case with many women or smaller men, complicate the findings. Those with shorter arms can still commit suicide with rifles with the help of ropes, twine, or other supporting devices, but these cases are rare. And although the length of King’s arm is unknown, it is only the first aspect of doubt about the case.
During the autopsy, Dr. AS Walkowski found pieces of walnuts in both King’s teeth and stomach. Although she was described as drunk and despondent during the 15-minute coroner’s jury inquest, she was apparently in the middle of a snack when she decided to commit suicide. Possible, although somewhat unlikely.
Pilkenton, husband of less than six months, told one story at the scene of the death and another at the initial investigation. There, he requested a private audience to offer his new account of the events. “Must all these people be here?” he asked. Walter Huntley, Palmer’s first American commissioner and later a member of the territorial legislature, accepted this request and approved the verdict of suicide.
Discontent with the verdict was rife in Palmer. Rumors spread that Pilkenton had killed his wife or that a jealous man shot him while the accountant was at work. As the first violent death in the notorious Matanuska neighborhood, the death also received national coverage. In apparent response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Warren Taylor, another future legislator, promised to reopen the case on Nov. 23, but failed to follow through the next day, expressing his faith in the coroner’s jury.
Shortly thereafter, Third Division District Attorney Joseph Kehoe launched his own investigation. In early January 1937, he concluded that there was sufficient evidence to convene a grand jury charging the husband with involuntary manslaughter. As soon as Pilkenton heard it, he ran and jumped off the bridge into the Matanuska River. The current swept him onto a sheet of ice, where he remained for 30 minutes in 20-degree weather before being recovered.
From that promising change, the story took a turn and entered its depressing ending. After nine months in the Valdez jail, Pilkenton was released after the grand jury declined to indict him. When a grand jury declines to return an indictment, the proceedings are not made public, so the nature of the evidence and defense is unknown. In 1955, an Alaska grand jury also declined to indict musher Charley Cannon for the murder of his wife, after Cannon confessed, reenacted the crime, and led authorities on a tour of the murder site.
(He reenacted the 1955 murder of his wife and confessed, but a grand jury declined to indict him.)
Alvah Pilkenton lived on and continued to leave a mark on the historical record. Notably, he did not appear to return to Palmer, residing primarily in Eska and Anchorage for the remainder of his Alaska tenure. He served in World War II and was working in Anchorage as a civilian accountant for the Air Force when he died in 1954. He did not remarry and is buried in Anchorage’s Angelus Memorial Park Cemetery.
Zelda King’s parents, Arthur and Lois, tragically outlived their daughter. All three are buried in Mabton Cemetery in her hometown.
Without indictment, the charges evaporated, meaning there was officially no crime. So King isn’t even a statistic, and it’s not like crime statistics took place in 1930s Alaska. At best, she was a small-town gossip in Palmer, an incident overlooked by historians of the Matanuska colony and, therefore, beneath a footnote, almost entirely forgotten.
Zelda King’s story is limited by the trends of history, even more so given her tragic demise. However, she can also be a lesson. The terrible present for women in Alaska—intimate partner violence, rape, murder, and disappearances—is a direct continuation of the past, a reality that has willingly been allowed to endure. Because if the past is the same as the present, it is a choice not to alter the context.
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Key sources:
“180 to complete the normal course.” (Spokane, Washington) Spokesman-Review, May 22, 1925, p.
“Girlfriend of 6 months shot at Palmer”. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November 14, 1936, 5.
“Writings from Alaska.” Petersburg Press, January 15, 1937, 2.
“A. Pilkenton base accountant dies”. Anchorage Daily Times, December 11, 1954, 11.
Blakaj, Flamur, Flamur Dylhasi, Ditor Haliti, Ilir Kukaj and Driton Krasniqi. “An unusual method of suicide with a rifle using a support device and a rope to pull the trigger: a case report.” Forensic Science International: Reports 2 (2020): 10048.
“Investigation into Palmer Bride’s death closes”. Anchorage Daily Times, November 23, 1936, 1, 8.
“Grand jury frees Alvah Pilkenton”. Anchorage Daily Times, October 20, 1937, 1.
“Investigation into woman’s death dropped”. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November 24, 1936, 7.
“Miss Zelda King becomes Alvah Pilkenton’s girlfriend”. Anchorage Daily Times, May 25, 1936, p.
“Calligraphy teachers receive awards”. (Spokane, Washington) Spokesman-Review, June 27, 1924, p.
“The teacher speaks of Matanuska circumstances.” (Missoula, Montana) Missoulian, December 8, 1935, p.
“Woman’s death will be further investigated.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November 23, 1936, 2.
“Zelda Pilkington dies from gunshot wound”. Matanuska Valley Pioneer, November 1, 1936, 1.
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