Rosemary Niedzwiecki, pictured in the 1956 Lincoln High (San Diego) yearbook as a senior.
Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.
The small clock on the wall revealed a somber reality of the dark, exhausting hours of the early morning. It was Nov. 20, 1961 and nearly 5 a.m., amid the last ticks of the long day at the Club 210, an Anchorage bar on East Fifth Avenue. There were four people in proper attendance, including bartender and co-owner Robert “Chick” Adams serving lounge singer Rose Dawn. The other two men were armed, eager to relieve the establishment of its cash. Three of those four principal actors survived the ensuing tragedy. Those readers familiar with either recent or distant Alaska history will be unsurprised. It was the woman who died.
Rose Dawn was a stage name, coincidentally also a popular brand of nylons back then. Rosemary Niedzwiecki was born in 1938 in San Diego and grew up there, attending Abraham Lincoln High School. She lived to sing, made it her profession, even at a young age establishing herself as a traveling act in destinations like Las Vegas. Meanwhile, as Anchorage boomed in the 1940s through 1950s, waves of new bars and clubs opened here, each viciously competing with the others for the right to raid local wallets. And one way they attracted business was by importing Lower 48 talent as B-girls, dancers and singers. As of November 1961, Rose Dawn was just 23 years old, a dark-eyed beauty working a standing gig for Leo’s Supper Club at the Forest Park Country Club. Forest Park was a golf course, just west of what is now the Westchester Lagoon, then the Chester Creek mudflats.
An advertisement in the Nov. 17, 1961 edition of the Anchorage Daily Times touting the performances of Rose Dawn backed by the Dave Reno Quartet at Leo’s Supper Club.
Club 210 opened in 1956, the name seemingly a bowling reference, as their address was 224 E. Fifth Ave. Joseph Miljas was an original co-owner. Miljas (1913-1979), also known as Papa Joe, later owned the notorious Spenard Road strip club PJ’s, hence the meaning behind those two letters. “Chick” Adams was born in Kentucky and had been in Anchorage for around a decade as of 1961. The smaller bars and clubs then took much of their personality from their owners, who were frequently the bartenders as well. So, the bar was also called “Chick n’ Joes,” or the place to drink with “Chic.” Consistent spelling was hardly a crucial step in getting drunk.
The fateful morning, Nov. 20, 1961, Dawn was unwinding after another grinding performance, verbally dancing with Adams in that expected pattern of bartender and unloading patron. She may have wondered, aloud or otherwise, about the progression or lack thereof in her career. Anchorage clubs in those days tended to pay well but weren’t the sort of prestige gigs that could advance a singer onwards and upwards. No one outside Alaska cared if you headlined the Buckaroo or Last Chance or even Leo’s Supper Club. Perhaps, just perhaps, that is why Dawn was the last woman in the last bar still open on a crisp, chilly night.
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A Club 210 wooden nickel from 1969 inviting patrons to “have a drink on Chic,” referencing owner Robert “Chick” Adams.
Two young men conspired at a table away from the bar, nursing drunks, both of them edgy and uncertain, eyes drifting about to soak in the details. Gerald Lee Cox and Terrance Wayne Brady were both 22 and residents at the Chinook Hotel. Nearing 5 a.m., the last customer besides themselves and Dawn left, prompting Cox and Brady to huddle around the bar. Cox stood and moved as if toward the restroom, only to turn around suddenly while holding an automatic pistol. “My friend wants to see how well you’ve done tonight,” the robber declared.
Cox guarded Dawn and Adams while Brady ransacked the cash register. It had been a solid night at the bar, producing a $250 score, roughly $2,700 in 2025, not counting the hundreds more in checks left behind. But the robbers wanted more. “You got any dough besides what’s in here?” they asked. Adams retorted, “You think I’d keep all that dough in the register if I had a safe?”
A storage room lay behind the bar, cold and drafty. Cox and Brady escorted Dawn and Adams into the back. They demanded Adams’ keys. “What for,” replied the barkeep. “So, I can lock the joint up when we leave,” replied one of the robbers. “We don’t want anybody to come stumbling in here and find you until we’ve had a chance to get away.” Adams grimaced at a sudden realization. His partner wouldn’t arrive to open the bar until 10, nearly five hours later, which should be enough time to let the criminals slip town. Still, he stared at their faces, willing their features into his memory. If given the chance, he wanted to remember them.
Seeing Dawn shiver, Adams argued, “Give the girl a break and let her have her coat. It gets damn cold back here.” One of the thieves responded ominously: “You’ll never feel it.” Then they struck the bartender over the head with a liquor bottle. He swayed toward the floor, dazed, then lost consciousness.
When Adams woke, he was gnawing on a cord wrapped around his head and pulled through his mouth. One of the bandits was trying to choke him to death. Nonetheless, he could see Dawn sprawled nearby, unmoving. As he struggled, two shots rang out in the small room. One passed through Adams’ neck. The other deflected off his skull and lodged near the junction with the spine. Of course, doctors later figured out all those specific details. As far as the robbers could tell, they’d shot Adams twice in the back of the head to massive crimson effect on the surroundings.
Adams was understandably woozy, in shock from the experience and wounds. Still, he recalled one of them talking, “Let’s get out of here. I got him right in the back of the head that time.” In one moment, they were there, standing over him, and in the next they were gone. Pained and growing cold, Adams scrabbled on the floor, moved himself by will toward a phone. With a heroic effort, he managed a single phone call for help, thereafter sinking back to the floor to await whatever came next. In his shaken daze, he had called the fire department, which dispatched an ambulance and subsequently contacted the police.
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A picture of Club 210 from the story “Without the Gun and the Money,” featured in a 1962 edition of “Official Detective Stories.”
For a few minutes, Anchorage was shut down as the police sought to close off avenues of escape. They might not have bothered. Cox and Brady were arrested a few minutes later, just five blocks away from Club 210, albeit without gun or cash. They made for a rather conspicuous pair, two young men walking together around a freezing Anchorage at 5 in the morning right after two young men robbed a bar in the immediate vicinity. The officers on duty accomplished no incredible feat of policing when they put that particular two and two together. Because of fresh snow, it took a few days of searching, but the gun was eventually found tossed down an alley and the cash tucked away on a roof.
Given their age, both men had surprisingly lengthy rap sheets, but Cox in particular was well known to local law enforcement. In March 1960, he was arrested for robbing the Sears Roebuck store in Mountain View. After posting bail, he was arrested again that same day for an unconnected robbery. He faced additional charges after attempting to escape the local federal jail that May. In the summer of 1961, he robbed the Anchorage Transit System bus garage and was out on $10,000 bail at the very time he robbed Club 210.
When the ambulance arrived, Dawn was already dead. She had also been shot twice, once in the leg and again in the back of her head. Adams was alive but in serious condition. Doctors were unsure whether he would survive. A day later, he surprisingly improved and was able to identify Cox and Brady from his hospital bed.
As Adams continued to recover, establishing further clearance between himself and the grave, the outcome for the entire affair was carved deeper into stone. An injured living witness meant certainty, in the courts and for the imprisonment to come. There would be no clever legal maneuvers, no surprises. Cox, at least, understood this reality. At his arraignment, he told the judge, “Could you please appoint me (an attorney) so that I can begin proceedings and get this over with.” The waiting is the hardest part, he surely thought. Time to get on with whatever is next.
Titled “Without the Gun and the Money,” an Anchorage robbery and murder was portrayed in a 1962 edition of “Official Detective Stories.”
Adams indeed appeared at their preliminary hearing, pale but sure as he dramatically pointed out the killers, as if from a movie. After their indictments, Cox and Brady shaved a few visits to the courthouse off their lives and pleaded guilty. Their court-appointed attorneys — Ted Stevens represented Brady — argued for 20-year sentences, but Judge James Fitzgerald ordered life imprisonment without recommendation or parole. Fitzgerald described the murder as a “cruel and brutal killing, done with abandoned heart.”
The entire affair was featured in the April 1962 issue of “Official Detective Stories,” one of many pulpy true crime magazines then popular. “Without the Gun and the Money” appeared alongside other luridly titled articles, such as “Who Would Want to Bomb Congressman Green,” “Maybe Donna Had Too Many Friends,” “Human Bait for the Telephone Wolf,” and “I Want to Watch You Kill Me.”
The cover of a 1962 edition of “Official Detective Stories,” featuring “Without the Gun and the Money,” which portrayed an Anchorage robbery and murder.
Detective Earl Hibpshman worked the Club 210 case. An article on his 1974 retirement described the pulpy piece as “overdramatized, the old-timers say, and made Hibpshman and others who worked the case look like Columbo, Mike Hammer, and Sherlock Holmes rolled into one.”
Rose Dawn — Rosemary Niedzwiecki — was buried back in her hometown, at San Diego’s Holy Cross Cemetery. Alaska was her undoing, the end to any further career or fame. Or simply life. Alaska in general and Anchorage specifically are often touted as among the most dangerous places in the country for women, what with the dire rates of violence against women here. There are no trustworthy statistics for Alaska from the time of Rose Dawn’s brief tenure, but there is likewise nothing to suggest that it was a better reality. Again and again, a lesson learned, crime is no recent innovation in Anchorage.
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[Trapped: The case of the 1951 Interior Alaska cabin fever murder that was solved and then retried]
[The great snoring assault of 1953 Anchorage and other snoring history]
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
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The U.S. military has released new details about the massive Fightertown Recapitalization (FTR) program at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), in Anchorage, southeastern Alaska. This is a huge effort valued at approximately $7 billion that would effectively create an entirely new fighter hub to support future Air Force operations in the strategically important Arctic and Pacific regions.
The details emerged in a special notice announcing an upcoming virtual industry day, where government officials plan to brief contractors on the scope of the program and gather feedback on construction risks, industry capabilities, and acquisition strategies before moving toward a formal procurement process.
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson flies over the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. James Richardson
While the notice, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is intended primarily as market research, it offers one of the clearest looks yet at the scale and ambition of the Fightertown recapitalization effort.
According to the notice, existing airfield facilities cannot support the program’s requirements, prompting the selection of a new site to expand the current airfield infrastructure. Rather than a collection of isolated projects, the government describes the effort as a “complete campus approach” intended to synchronize facility construction with aircraft procurement, personnel movements, and logistical requirements.
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The envisioned campus would include aircraft hangars, squadron operations facilities, corrosion control facilities, maintenance shops, and other aviation support infrastructure. Extensive airfield improvements are also planned, including new taxiways, aprons, shoulders, and specialized aircraft operating surfaces.
A picture of a so-called “elephant walk” readiness exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson showing 24 of the resident 3rd Wing’s F-22s, as well as a C-17 and an E-3. U.S. Air Force
Highly likely to be included in the recapitalization efforts will be measures to help reduce vulnerability and ensure critical operations could continue in wartime. After all, in a potential fight against China or Russia, JBER would be high on the list of priority targets in the opening phases of a large-scale conflict. As we have repeatedly outlined in the past, aircraft shelters with varying degrees of hardening are suddenly very much back on the agenda in response to growing drone and missile threats.
Beyond flight-line infrastructure, the project encompasses a substantial support ecosystem. Plans call for a munitions complex, petroleum operations facilities, warehousing and supply functions, dining facilities, visitor control infrastructure, firefighting facilities, training centers, simulators, and housing for unaccompanied airmen.
The government also notes that the campus design remains flexible and could ultimately involve modifications to, or demolition of, existing facilities as planning progresses.
Rather than relying solely on traditional military construction contracting approaches, the Army Corps of Engineers says the program intends to leverage authorities provided in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. Those authorities could allow the use of Other Transaction Authority (OTA), Progressive Design-Build (PDB), and other alternative execution methods.
The sprawling Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), in Anchorage, southeastern Alaska, as seen in a satellite image from May of this year. Google Earth
The notice explicitly states that the government intends to capitalize on private-sector innovation while avoiding what it describes as costly and time-consuming federal contracting burdens. It also emphasizes that the execution strategy will encourage industry partners to propose novel technical and construction solutions.
The scale of the investment underscores Alaska’s growing importance as a hub for U.S. airpower. JBER already serves as one of the Air Force’s premier fighter installations and occupies a critical geographic position between North America, the Arctic, a part of the world that has only grown in strategic significance in recent years, and the Indo-Pacific theater, where strategic planning is highly focused on a potential future conflict with China.
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Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson hosts the headquarters of the 11th Air Force, the service’s top command in Alaska, and its 3rd Wing, which operates a mix of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning Control System (AWACS) radar planes, C-17 Globemaster III airlifters, and C-12 light utility aircraft. It is also home to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 176th Wing, which has additional C-17s, as well as HC-130 Combat King rescue aircraft and HH-60 rescue helicopters.
HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter aircrew assigned to the 210th Rescue Squadron, 176th Wing, Alaska Air National Guard, hoist a simulated downed pilot during a full mission profile training exercise at Malemute Drop Zone, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, March 31, 2026. Alaska National Guard photo by Alejandro Peña
In addition, in 2023, the Air Force announced the creation of the 55th Operations Group, Detachment 1 at the base, as a detachment of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
“The new detachment will… serve as a strategic launch and recovery point for RC-135V/W Rivet Joint operations and exercises in the region,” according to the Air Force.
The move reflected increased demand for RC-135V/W Rivet Joint spy plane sorties in the Pacific, with JBER being well-positioned for these aircraft to gather intelligence on areas of interest in the northern end of the Pacific and the increasingly strategic Arctic region.
In the future, the strategic location of JBER, as well as its current status as one of the few F-22 bases, suggests that it could well eventually host the F-47 sixth-generation stealth fighter, the first of which is expected to make its first flight sometime in 2028. The F-47 could therefore well end up as the centerpiece of the Alaskan Fightertown, in keeping with the vision for the jet serving as a critical force multiplier that can bring together other crewed and uncrewed assets. With that in mind, at least some of the Fightertown Recapitalization program may be specifically tailored to the requirements of the F-47.
Importantly, JBER also serves as the focal point for the Red Flag-Alaska and Northern Edge exercises.
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The Red Flag-Alaska exercises can take place up to four times a year and mirror those flown over the Nellis Range Complex in Nevada, with some differences. Namely, the ranges in Alaska, many of which are instrumented, are enormous, and can include a more varied array of assets.
A U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry takes off during exercise Red Flag Alaska 26-1 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, April 29, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Joseph Miller
From JBER and other bases in the region, Red Flag-Alaska participants have access to the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC). Covering an area of more than 67,000 square miles and providing 77,000 square miles of airspace above, JPARC is the “largest instrumented air, ground and electronic combat training range in the world,” according to the Air Force. It is regularly used to provide a realistic training environment for full-spectrum engagements, ranging from individual skills to large-scale joint engagements.
JPARC’s role could grow further in the coming years as the Air Force pushes large-scale exercises further and further out into the broad expanses of the Pacific. Other range complexes further down along the West Coast are seeing increasing use, as well. Even very large overland ranges, such as the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) adjacent to Nellis Air Force Base, are increasingly constrained when attempting to replicate modern scenarios based on ever-growing adversary anti-access and aerial denial (A2/AD) bubbles.
Meanwhile, Northern Edge also occurs in and around Alaska every two years, with these large-scale events being used to test and evaluate new systems and capabilities from across the U.S. military.
One of the Air Force’s tiny force of semi-retired F-117 Nighthawk stealth jets, now used for test and evaluation purposes, at Elmendorf during Northern Edge 2023. U.S. Air Force
In the past, the Air Force has described Northern Edge as a demonstration of “the U.S. commitment to the region by building interoperability, advancing common interests and a commitment to our allies and partners in ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific,” as well as showcasing U.S. ability to defend the homeland from and throughout Alaska.
As planning advances, we will learn more about what this new Alaskan Fightertown will look like. What is already clear is that the Air Force and the Pentagon are preparing for a long-term expansion and modernization effort on a scale rarely seen at an operational fighter base.
More details could emerge during the industry day scheduled for June 30, when government officials will provide a comprehensive update on the program and solicit feedback from industry partners on how to execute one of the Air Force’s biggest military infrastructure projects.
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Update: 3:45 PM ET –
“We are deliberately investing in Pacific Air Force’s critical infrastructure by replacing and upgrading operations and maintenance facilities in addition to making repairs to existing buildings and funding mission-ready materiel, storage, and sustainment necessary for homeland defense and Agile Combat Employment operations,” a U.S. Air Force official has now told us in response to our queries for more information about the Fightertown plan. “We are also extending the runway and building a Joint Integrated Test and Training Center at JBER.”
“We are in the design stage now and will have a better idea of timelines once we receive an appropriation,” they added.
By Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protectionon
The Starry fire picked up today and the Fairbanks Area initial attack helicopter dropped buckets of water during the heat of the day.
Despite the brief uptick in fire activity, the fire remained at 575 acres and resources were able to get hose completely around the fire.
Pioneer Peak Hotshots Forrest Boynton and Trapper Gephart, cut saw line around the west side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
Crews on the East and South side off the fire swept 200 foot outside of the fire’s edge, and found no heats. A grid is planned for tomorrow on the North side of the fire.
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The City of Anderson is still at evacuation level, “Go.”
The Denali Borough has issued a ‘Ready’ evacuation order for “North 40” further west and across the Nenana River from Anderson, Alaska because of two other wildland fires in the wider area. The “North 40” includes residents north of Lightning Avenue and between the Teklanika River and the Nenana River.
The Type 3 Incident Management Team running the Starry Fire is prepared and planning to take on other wildfires in the area should it become necessary to engage.
‘Ready’ is the first step in the “Ready. Set. Go.” Statewide evacuation planning. Residents are encouraged to prepare necessary items such as pets, medication and important documents and monitor evacuation updates.
Firefighters completed a dozer line around the fire yesterday, they were helped in part by a burn scar from the 2013 Clear Air Force Base Fire, which helped slow the fire down.
Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
“The dozer line is not a scalpel,” Pioneer Peak Hotshot Sup. Kris Baumgartner. Fire activity could pick up and through embers across the line.
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Two federal contract crews, Moose Heart and Clearwater, are expected to arrive Tuesday.
‹ DFFP responding to a new fire east of Delta
Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, Alaska DNR – Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DFFP)
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A Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter crashed Monday morning during a training flight in Alaska.
A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter had four people onboard when it went down near Harbor Mountain in Sitka, a town in the Alexander Archipelago in southern Alaska several dozen miles south of Juneau. The Jayhawk and its aircrew are assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
The crash happened Monday morning at around 10:07 a.m. local time, the Coast Guard said. It took nearly an hour for rescue crews to arrive on the scene. Rescue. However, no serious injuries were reported, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard Arctic District told Task & Purpose. All four crew members were taken by Sitka Fire and Rescue teams to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka.
The cause of the crash isn’t known, and in a post on X, the Coast Guard Arctic District said that a “formal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the event.”
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The Coast Guard Arctic District covers not only Alaska but the waters around it, including the Prince William Sound and waters in the Pacific.
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Given Alaska’s remote conditions, local and military aircraft are often used to provide emergency search and rescue operations. Both the Coast Guard and National Guard regularly dispatch helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to help people stranded or in crisis at sea.
In April, helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka and the National Guard conducted a mass casualty drill near the town, as part of what the Coast Guard called “a large joint exercise involving multiple government agencies and local organizations.”
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Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
