WASILLA, ALASKA - The world arrived here more than a century ago with the gold rush and later the railroad. Yet one aspect of American life did not come to town until 1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor and Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics.

The traditional issues that decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people -- Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? -- seemed all but obsolete the year Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent, John C. Stein.

Anti-abortion flyers circulated. Palin played up her church work and her membership in the National Rifle Association. The state Republican Party, never involved in the past because city elections are nonpartisan, ran advertisements on Palin's behalf.

Two years after Newt Gingrich, then the Republican leader of Congress, helped draft the Contract With America, Palin and her passion for Republican ideology and religious faith overtook a town known for a wide libertarian streak and for helping start the Iditarod dog sled race.

"Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, 'Whoa,' " said Stein, who lost the election. "But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I'm not a churchgoing guy and that was another issue: 'We will have our first Christian mayor.' "

"I thought, 'Holy cow, what's happening here? Does that mean she thinks I'm Jewish or Islamic?"' recalled Stein, who was raised Lutheran. "The point was that she was a born-again Christian."

Bumps on the road

For all the admiration in Alaska for Palin, her rapid ascent from an activist in the PTA to the running mate of Sen. John McCain did not come without battle wounds. Her years in Wasilla reveal a mix of successes and stumbles, with Palin gaining support from the majority of residents for her drive, her faith and her accessibility but alienating others with what they said could be a polarizing single-mindedness.

Palin is widely praised for following through on campaign promises by cutting property taxes while improving roads and sewers and strengthening the police department. Her supporters say she helped Wasilla evolve from a ridiculed backwater to fast-growing suburb.

But her critics say too much growth too quickly has made a mess of what not long ago was homesteaded farmland.

Battle over books

And for some, Palin's first months in office here were so jarring -- and so alienating -- that an effort was made to force a recall. About 100 people attended a meeting to discuss the effort, which was covered in the local press, but the idea was dropped.

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Palin's first year in office, said Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at a council meeting. "They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her," Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to "resist all efforts at censorship," Kilkenny recalled. The mayor fired Emmons shortly after taking office but rescinded the termination after residents made a strong show of support. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

Emmons was not the only employee to leave. During her campaign, Palin appealed to voters who felt that city employees under Stein, who was not from Wasilla and had earned a degree in public administration at the University of Oregon, had been unresponsive and rigid regarding a new comprehensive development plan. In turn, some city employees expressed support for Stein in a campaign advertisement.

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