Chris M. Eckmann 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 1926 to 1927.

Biography

Chris Eckmann was born May 27, 1874 in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. He worked in lumber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

 in North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

 before moving to Seattle to enter the furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 trade in 1906. He married in 1911, and in May 1915, moved to tent city

Tent City

A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents. Informal tent cities may be set up without authorization by homeless people or protesters. As well, state governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house refugees, evacuees, or soldiers...

 at the site of what would later become known as Anchorage. He opened up a furniture store on the corner of Fifth Avenue and K Street, and worked for the Alaska Railroad

Alaska Railroad

The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad which extends from Seward and Whittier, in the south of the state of Alaska, in the United States, to Fairbanks , and beyond to Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright in the interior of that state...

 as a clerk and a baggage handler.

In 1923 he was elected to the Anchorage City Council, and in 1926 he was elected to a single term as mayor. He was elected to an additional term on the council in 1933. He served as a director of First National Bank Alaska

First National Bank Alaska

First National Bank Alaska is an American bank founded in 1922 by Winfield Ervin, Sr., as First National Bank of Anchorage. The first branch stood on the corner of Fourth and G in Anchorage, Alaska.-History:...

, and was active in a number of fraternal organizations, including the Freemasons, the Shriners

Shriners

The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, also commonly known as Shriners and abbreviated A.A.O.N.M.S., established in 1870, is an appendant body to Freemasonry, based in the United States...

, the Elks, the Eagles

Fraternal Order of Eagles

Fraternal Order of Eagles International is a fraternal organization that was founded on February 6, 1898, in Seattle, Washington by a group of six theater owners including John Cort , brothers John W. and Tim J. Considine, Harry Leavitt , Mose Goldsmith and Arthur Williams...

, and the Odd Fellows

Odd Fellows

Odd Fellows is a name broadly referring to any of a large number of friendly societies, fraternal and service organizations and/or Lodges.-Societies using the name "Odd Fellows" or variations:...

.

He died from complications of pneumonia the night of January 21, 1937 at Anchorage Hospital.