The Fairview Inn and the Harding Legend
Near Talkeetna, Alaska
On Main Street stands the Fairview Inn, built in nineteen twenty three. Because it opened during Prohibition, the Fairview began life without a legal bar. It has more than made up for that since, and the building stands in the Talkeetna historic district.
The Fairview's favorite story involves a president. In the summer of nineteen twenty three, President Warren Harding traveled to Alaska to help mark the completion of the railroad, and his rail journey reportedly brought him through Talkeetna. Locals love to tell it their way.
As they grin, they will insist that Harding stopped at the Fairview, and that whatever he ate or drank there did him in, because just days later, back in San Francisco, the president was dead. Enjoy the tale, but hold it loosely. Harding did die in San Francisco in early August of nineteen twenty three, most likely of a heart attack, and there is no real evidence he was poisoned in Talkeetna or anywhere else.
Historians treat the poisoning stories about Harding as myth. Still, in a town this size, a good yarn about a doomed president is worth the price of a drink.
