Alaskan Honorary Cat Mayor Dies At 20

TALKEETNA, AK — A cat who served as the honorary mayor of a town a couple hours north of Anchorage has died at the age of 20.

The owners of Stubbs, the honorary feline mayor of Talkeetna, announced his death Saturday.

"Stubbs lived for 20 years and 3 months," the family wrote. "He was a trooper until the very last day of his life; meowing at us throughout the day to pet him or to come sit on the bed with him and let him snuggle and purr for hours in our lap. Thank you, Stubbs, for coming into our lives for the past 31 months; you are a remarkable cat and we will dearly miss you. We loved the time we were allowed to spend with you."

Mayor Stubbs, as the cat was commonly known, went to bed Thursday and died overnight, KTVA-TV reported. (For more Across Alaska news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Talkeetna has roughly 900 residents. The town elected the yellow cat mayor in a write-in campaign in 1998. The town does not have a human mayor.

Stubbs survived a dog attack four years ago and a false report of his death last year. But by late 2016, he was largely staying at home instead of being out and about at local Nagley's General Store.

Although Stubbs is gone, one of his owners' kittens might be ready to take up his mayoral mantle.

"Amazingly, Denali has the exact personality as Stubbs," the family wrote of the kitten. "He loves the attention, he's like a little puppy when he's around people. We couldn't have asked for a better understudy than Denali — he really has followed in Stubbs' pawprints in just about everything."

Photo credit: Mark Thiessen/Associated Press