Description: A June 1, 1929 Associated Press article provides the first news of this eruption: "Intermittenly lighting the sky with flames and darkening it with ashes a new volcano today was pouring molten lava down the sides of an unnamed mountain and threatning to cover all of Akutan Island, residents of the upper Aleutian Islands reported here.
"The island, 1,000 miles southwest of Cordova, normally would have about a dozen residents at this time of year. * * * Heavy ash from the volcano was gradually covering neighboring islands, observers reported, and blanketing vegetation with a coat of grey. Volcanic ash has been seen here [Cordova, AK] but whether this was from the Akutan eruption or from some unreported disturbance in turbulent islands of the Bering Sea was unknown."
From Jaggar (1929): Akutan's "lower slopes were covered with ash June 18, 1929." July 1929, he reported it was fuming again.
An Associated Press article published in the June 25, 1929, edition of the Fairbanks Daily News Miner reported "Passengers arriving here [Seattle] yesterday morning on the steamer W.M. Tupper from Bethel said that a volcano in the Aleutian Islands just west of Unimak Pass is active. It is casting a dull red glow in the sky."
From Finch (1935): The December, 1929 eruption was witnessed by Axel Swenson, watchman at the whaling station. "A branch of a flow poured through the northwest gap in the crater rim, but it reached only a short distance down the flank of the mountain. During the summer of 1929 puffs of smoke or ash-laden steam frequently arose from the crater, and these puffs were usually followed by a crackling roar. In December 1929 a glow was observed over the crater for several days."
Byers and Barth (1953) report puffs of smoke in 1929, and a glow seen over crater for several days during December, with lava flow through crater gap. "The December, 1929, lava flow rests on an older ash-covered flow, which is grouped with the 1929 lava * * * as pre-1947 lava. A mud flow, which moved down through the crater gorge, originated at the front of the December, 1929, lava flow, with which it is gradational. This mud flow extends down to the valley bottom, north and north-west of the volcano, and there rests on older interbedded mud flows and ash deposits."