The Springer System

The Wes Grover farm is part of the original Springer homestead. Photo by Albert Marquez.

John August Springer

In October of 1914, Palmer-area pioneer John August Springer filed for homestead rights to 320 acres of benchland located on the north bank of a sweeping bend in the Matanuska River, with a commanding view of Pioneer Peak and the Knik River Valley to the south and east.

Springer built a log cabin and other buildings and proved up on his land, receiving the patent in 1920. Fifteen years later, in 1935, he sold part of his homestead to the United States government for $7.50 an acre for the Matanuska Colony Project, which would bring 203 new families from the depression-era Midwest to build their own homes in the Valley.

Springer System, June 7, 1941. Photo by U.S. Army Air Corps.

Matanuska Colony Project

The area south of Palmer which became known as the Springer System, with it’s looping roads named Inner Springer and Outer Springer, is the site of some of the richest and levelest farmland in the Matanuska Valley. Of the more than 200 farms which became the Matanuska Colony Project, for which the federal government offered financing and support, over one-quarter of them were located in the Springer area.

Only a few notched logs remain to mark the location  of John Springer’s cabin overlooking the Matanuska River.

 

Farms and Subdivisions

Today the Springer System is a network of picturesque farms which would pass for almost anywhere in the midwest if not for the towering peaks of the Chugach Range. While an ever-increasing number of farms are being subdivided for tract housing, there are still enough hayfields, pastures, croplands and massive Colony barns to give the area a friendly rural feel.

At the end of E. DePriest Avenue, in the southeast corner of the Springer System, the logs of John Springer’s cabin can still be seen on a bluff overlooking the Matanuska River.