Lamplight Bar & Liquor Store

Paul Costa owned the Lamplight Bar, which was located at the corner of what is now Kenai Spur Highway and Holt Lamplight. Costa envisioned a whole community in that area, which he would have called "Gruening, Alaska." He invested in it and built a cabin to house the post office. He even had matchbooks made up for the Lamplight Bar with the Gruening name on them.

Unfortunately, the postal service had a policy against naming a post office for a person who was still living (in this case, Ernest Gruening, who had been the governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and a United States Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969). Because of this, the post office application was rejected. Eventually, the investors in this community ran out of funds and ideas to promote it.

In 1967, Costa allowed someone to stay in the post office cabin and on the 4th of July that year the cabin burned to the ground. Costa deeded the land over to his main investors, Ron and Louise Mika, and sold the Lamplight Bar. In 1971, the bar also burned down. Afterward, the Mikas bought the land and rebuilt the bar, running it for many years.