A $16.7 million federal grant will support construction of the first state Veterans Cemetery in Alaska, providing a final resting place for veterans in Fairbanks and other regions, according to the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded the funding for the Interior Alaska Veterans Cemetery last week, the department said.
The cemetery will be the first for veterans that's operated and owned by the state of Alaska, said Verdie Bowen, director of the Alaska Office of Veterans Affairs.
The cemetery will be located in Salcha, south of Fairbanks, and is expected to be completed by late 2027.
It will fund 351 pre-placed crypts, 600 columbarium niches to hold cremains, and 279 in-ground cremation gravesites. It will also be home to a memorial wall and walk, roads, administrative and maintenance offices and other facilities.
Phase 1 will focus on developing 11 acres, but there are plans to grow, Bowen said.
The cemetery will be built on an old homestead, with land covering 257 acres, Bowen said.
"We have more than enough to cover future needs of a cemetery," Bowen said.
The cemetery is projected to serve more than 15,000 veterans and eligible family members from a wide swath of Alaska that also includes the North Slope, Bowen said.
Three cemeteries for veterans exist in southern Alaska, but they are hard to reach for Interior veterans, he said.
They include national cemeteries at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and in Sitka in Southeast Alaska. The tribe in Metlakatla in Southeast, home to the state's only Indian reservation, also owns and operates the Metlakatla Veterans Memorial Cemetery, established with funding from Veterans Affairs.
Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the cemetery is needed in Alaska, home to the highest percentage of veterans in the U.S.
Sullivan last year included language in the annual military construction appropriations bill report that required the Veterans Cemetery Grants Program to prioritize states such as Alaska that hadn't received a state-granted Veterans Affairs cemetery, the statement said
"It has been a privilege to work alongside the persistent, patriotic Alaska veterans in the Interior to realize this important milestone for our state," Sullivan said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on social media on Friday that she helped ensure the grant was fully funded through the appropriations process. She knew longtime advocates of the cemetery wouldn't give up until that goal was met, she said.
"Earlier this year, I had the privilege of visiting the site in Salcha," she said in the statement. "Looking southwest and watching the Tanana River bend through the Alaska Range, you really can't imagine a more serene setting for our veterans to be laid to rest."
"I congratulate our team in the Office of Veterans Affairs, as well as the Department of Transportation team, for advancing this project, thereby ensuring our state honors and remembers our fallen heroes," said Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard and the department's commissioner.
Securing the grant was a long process with lots of challenges, the state's military and veterans department said. The grant pre-application was initially submitted in the spring of 2009.
"It's been quite an undertaking for us," Bowen said. "It is virtually a miracle to get to this point where we are today with funds in our hands."
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