North to Alaska

Ted Law is a scrappy young (34) Texas wildcatter who has long wanted to stake out an empire of his own in aviation. Last week he had a good start. As the new president of Alaska Airlines, Inc. he was boss of 6,600 miles of subarctic air routes that stretched all the way from Juneau to Little Diomede Island, within gliding distance of Siberia. Only American Airlines, Inc. could boast of more continental air-route mileage.

Alaska Airlines (formerly Star Airlines) is still only loosely held together. It was started by an elderly Manhattan industrialist, Raymond W. Marshall, who, seeing the great possibilities in Alaskan aviation, merged four bush-flying lines. As a result, its 30 planes are mostly flying antiques. Passengers often sit astride piles of rawhide and potatoes as the planes snake their way through mountain passes with supplies for isolated villages, mining camps and canneries.

By such seat-of-the-pants flying, Alaska managed to provide 28% of the territory's population with passenger, property and mail service last year, topping even Pan American Airways' lusty subsidiary, Pacific Alaska. But Alaska Airlines lost some $60,000 in the process. This was pleasing to the territories' 20 other fiercely competitive airlines, whose pilots think nothing of wooing passengers out of rivals' offices.

They sat back, ready to chew up Alaska Airlines when it weakened further. But Tenderfoot Law planned to fool them. This week, he flew north with a hatful of plans which he firmly believes will 1) make Alaska Airlines undisputed top dog, 2) put it in a key spot athwart postwar Great Circle routes to the Orient.

The Wherewithal. Theodore Newton Law has plenty of cash to back up his plans, largely from an oil fortune left him by his great-grandfather, T. N. Barnsdall, who built the first oil refinery in the U.S., and his father, the late Robert Law, president of the $23,000,000 Barnsdall Oil Co.

Young Ted, who went to work for Barnsdall after graduating from St. Paul's School, set out in 1935 with his own wildcatting and drilling company, Falcon Seaboard Drilling Co. Later, he organized Aero Exploration Co. to map oil lands as one of his jobs, traced the route of Big Inch from Texas to New Jersey. But Aero, which made aircraft surveys, gave him a hankering for the aviation business.

After buying into Mid-Continent Airlines, Inc. and becoming a director, Ted Law laid out $250,000 for a substantial interest in Alaska Airlines. A month ago he persuaded chubby, bearded Harry R. Playford, chairman of the board of the First National Bank of St. Petersburg, Fla., to put in another $250,000. Marshall and Playford gave Law the job of civilizing the line.

As the first step, he wangled two surplus DC-35 from the Civil Aeronautics Board, hopes to have them operating in two months. With them as a starter, he hopes to bring an end to the present haphazard schedules, and to knock down fares.

Later he hopes to add more such equipment, pull Alaska's far-flung routes into a tight, efficient network, thus dominate the north completely. If & when that time comes, he has a still greater dream: break out of Alaska on routes already applied for and fly to Seattle, Minneapolis and Chicago, maybe even Russia and the Orient.

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