humorist Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post made an unplanned stop at Walakpa Bay 15 mi (24 km) south of Barrow while enroute to Barrow. As they took off again their plane stalled and plunged into a river, killing them both. There are now two memorials at the location, now called the Rogers-Post Site. There is another memorial located in Barrow, where the airport has been renamed the Wiley Post�Will Rogers Memorial Airport.
Barrow was incorporated as a 1st Class City in 1958.
Residents of the North Slope cast the lone vote in opposition to passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which passed in December 1971. In 1972, the North Slope Borough was established. The borough, with millions of dollars in new revenues, created sanitation, water and electrical utilities, roads, fire departments, and health and educational services in Barrow and the villages of the North Slope.
In 1986, the North Slope Borough created the North Slope Higher Education Center, which later became Ilisagvik College, which is now an accredited two-year college dedicated to providing an education based on the Inupiat culture and the needs of the North Slope Borough.
The Tuzzy Consortium Library, in the Inupiat Heritage Center, serves the communities of the North Slope Borough and functions as the academic library for Ilisagvik College. The library was named after Evelyn Tuzroyluk Higbee.
Barrow, like many communities in Alaska, has enacted a "damp" law prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages, but allows for import, possession and consumption.
In 1988, Barrow became the center of a worldwide media attention when three California Gray Whales became trapped in the ice offshore. After a two week rescue effort (Operation Breakthrough), two of the whales were ultimately freed by a Soviet icebreaker. Journalist Tom Rose details the rescue, and the media frenzy which accompanied it, in his 1989 book Freeing The Whales. The movie Big Miracle is based
