The Eagle - the newspaper that was driven by a fire truck
Forty-six years ago, Shirl Mauldin was hoodwinked into starting a newspaper for the residents of Eagle River.
Mauldin said she was a reluctant editor, since she’d had no prior journalism experience, and Chugiak already had a newspaper that covered both communities. After some urging and cajoling from a local homesteader, Mauldin launched the Eagle, which she said became “a labor of love and a labor of fun.”
The weekly paper combined news, public service announcements, human interest stories and good-natured gossip. Each edition featured a large section called the “Eagles Nest”, which detailed residents’ visits from family, vacations, hospitalizations and other personal news that people reported to Mauldin. “It was a paper about your neighbors, not really about hard news.
