Looking Back can be found here.

Today's bonus story is a quirky bit of history that you probably haven't heard of. It's the story of how Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in Alaska, as published in the Feb. 13, 1960 News-Miner.

Lincoln Freed Slaves in Alaska

JUNEAU, Alaska, Feb. 13, (AP)—When Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation he probably wasn't thinking of Alaska, but because of it the Tongass Indians carved the Lincoln totem.

Sen. John Coghill (R-Nenana) told the story yesterday in a Lincoln Day speech to the senate.

A group of Tongass Indians, part of the famed Tlingit tribe, were hed as slaves by the Klukwantan tribe on Tongass Island.

In 1868, a year after the United States purchased Alaska from the Russians, a Coast Guard custom station was established on Tongass Island. The slaves fled to the station for refuge and were granted asylum.

Secretary of State William H. Seward later visited the station and told the Indians they, too, had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. In gratitude the Tongass carved the totem pole atop which perched a figure of President Lincoln, stove pipe hat and all.

Of course, that story probably has more in common with fiction than fact.