Joe Kendler came to Juneau in 1917 and purchased the Douglas Dairy from Lee Smith. By 1921, Kendler met his wife while returning from his native Austria. Mathilde Sauermann of Wienheim, Germany, married Kendler in 1922. Kendler purchased the Alaska Dairy in 1923 from Thomas Knutson. The dairy consisted of 300 acres of land about nine miles from Juneau. Kendler moved his Douglas herd of cows to the Mendenhall Valley and kept the Douglas Dairy in operation until 1936. In 1934, an emergency landing field was built near the Alaska Dairy and by 1936, Pan American Airlines bought 20 acres to build the Juneau airport. The Alaska Dairy began to wind down by 1942 when the Army temporarily moved onto the Kendler homestead for security reasons. In 1951, the couple supplemented their retirement by selling potatoes and eggs and through the years, sold or subdivided their property which now houses Lyle's Hardware and the Airport Shopping Center (1992). Joe and Mathilde moved to Martha Lake, Washington, in 1965 where Joe died at the age of 80 in 1967. The Kendler's two children: Joe and Mildred Kendler Steen, do not live in Alaska, however, several grandchildren are currently living in the Juneau area (1992). Prior to her death in 1988, Mathilde authored a history of the Alaska Dairy in her 1983 publication, KENDLERS': THE STORY OF A PIONEER ALASKA JUNEAU DAIRY. The photographs in this series came from Jack Mills of Douglas, Alaska, and Mildred Kendler Steen of Seattle, Washington.