It isn’t just a city, it includes
suburbs, the urban core, a joint military base and most of Chugach State Park.
It is the 4th largest city in the US by area, and larger than Rhode Island.
In 1867, US Secretary of State
William Seward brokered a deal tp purchase Alaska from Russia for $7,200,00,
about 2 cents an acre. The idea was lampooned by his political rivals, but in
1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain Arm, just south of modern-day
Anchorage.
Alaska became a US territory in
1912. Anchorage started as neither a fishing nor mining camp.
There were a number of indigenous
settlements along the Knik Inlet (north of Anchorage) for years. By 1911, the
families of ‘Bud’ Whitney and Jim St Clair lived at the mouth of Ship Creek (on
the south side of the Knik Inlet). There were joined there in 1912 by Jack and
Nellie Brown.
In 1914, the Alaska Engineering
Commission chose a site near the mouth of Ship Creek for a railroad
construction port. The area quickly became a tent city, while a townsite was
mapped out on higher ground to the south. Anchorage was incorporated on
November 23, 1920.
On March 27, 1964, an earthquake of
magnitude 9.2 struck Anchorage, killing 115 people and causing $116 million in
damages. It was the world’s 2nd largest earthquake in recorded history. Because
much of the city was built atop glacial silt, there was much soil liquefaction,
leading to massive cracks in roads and the collapse of large swaths of land.
Dozens of house that were originally 250 to 300 feet above sea level sank with
the land they sat on, coming to a rest at sea level.
Although there have been many
attempts to move the capitol to Anchorage or to a location closer to Anchorage,
they have all ultimately been defeated. Even so, Anchorage has over twice as
many state employees as Juneau, and is to a considerable extent the center of
state and federal government activity in Alaska.
Cities often grow where they have
easy access to trade routes, whether by water or land. Even Anchorage follows
that stereotype, starting where an ocean inlet gave access to a creek from
inland. And it continued by becoming a railroad hub, making (rail)roads where
there hadn’t been any before. It currently has an international airport, which
is fitting, since it is only 9.5 hours or less to most large cities in
industrial countries.
We didn’t get to Anchorage when we
went to Alaska; we took a cruise, and it didn’t go that far north. We may have
to try again.
No comments:
Post a Comment