Thomas J. McCroskey was Mayor of Anchorage, Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska

Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...

 from 1933 to 1934.

Biography

Tom McCroskey was born into a Santa Maria Valley pioneer family in Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

 in 1874. He took part in the Fairbanks Gold Rush

Fairbanks Gold Rush

The Fairbanks Gold Rush was a gold rush that took place in Fairbanks, Alaska in the early 1900s. Fairbanks was a city largely built on Gold Rush fervor at the beginning of the 20th century. Discovery and exploration continue to thrive in and around modern-day Fairbanks.- History :Felix Pedro spent...

, moving to Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...

 in 1904 in order to prospect for gold. He took a job with the Alaska Road Commission

Alaska Road Commission

The Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska, more commonly known as the Alaska Road Commission or ARC, was created in 1905 as a board of the U.S. War Department...

in Fairbanks, and transferred to Anchorage in 1927.

In 1933, McCroskey defeated Carl E. Martin, 387 to 363 votes to become Mayor of Anchorage. He served a single term, and did not run again. In 1938, he retired to Santa Barbara, where he died on October 28, 1948 at the age of 74.