Unlike other states, Alaska is divided into 11 local governmental units called organized boroughs. Less than a half million people are permanent residents. The distance from east to west across the state of Alaska is 2,200 miles, but it has fewer people than any other state. It is almost one-fifth as large as the rest of the United States and more than twice the size of Texas, the second-largest state. Today, Alaska is the largest state in the U.S. At its most western point, the Alaskan mainland is 51 miles from Russia. About 500 miles of Canadian territory separates Alaska from the state of Washington. 3, 1959, it was the first new state in 47 years and the first state to be separated from the rest of the continental United States by another country. When Alaska became our 49th state on Jan. The name Alaska comes from a word used by the people of the Aleutian Islands. Huge oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay, along the Arctic Coast, rank as Alaska's chief source of wealth. The value of the resources taken from the region has paid back the purchase price hundreds of times. They called it "Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox," but Alaska proved to be rich in fish, minerals, timber and potential water power. The 586,412 square miles of Alaskan territory represented an investment of about 2 cents per acre.Īt the time, many Americans thought the region was a waste of ice and snow. In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward purchased Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. The state of Alaska is known as "The Last Frontier" because much of the state is not yet fully settled. For several years, Randall was police chief in Conway, but he left the city and went to Fairbanks, where he helped get a bookcase project started. While I have never been to the great state of Alaska, we have a Bookcase for Every Child project taking place in Fairbanks, Alaska, thanks to my good friend Randall Aragon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |