Anchorage, Alaska

Alaska is a romantic and isolated destination, along with the beauty of nature in abundance. Anchorage offers many places to enjoy, such as the Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve, winter activities such as dog sledding, or taking a look at the spectacular northern lights or experiencing nature by choosing trails.

Anchorage (officially called the Municipality of Anchorage; Dena'ina: Dgheyaytnu) is a unified government municipality in the US state of Alaska. With an estimated 298,192 residents in 2016,  it is the most populous city in Alaska and contains more than 40 percent of the state's total population; Among the 50 states, only New York has a higher percentage of residents living in its most populated city. In total, the Anchorage metropolitan area, which combines Anchorage with the neighboring municipality of Matanuska-Susitna, had a population of 401,635 in 2016, representing more than half of the state's population. With 1,706 square miles of land area, the city is the fourth largest city by land in the United States and larger than the smallest state, Rhode Island, with 1,212 square miles.

The anchorage is located in the south-central part of Alaska, at the end of Cook Inlet, on a peninsula formed by Knik Arm to the north and Turnagain Arm to the south. [10] The city limits encompass 1,961.1 square miles (5,079.2 km2) encompassing the urban core, a joint military base, several peripheral communities and almost the entire Chugach State Park.

Due to its location, almost equidistant from New York City, Frankfurt and Tokyo, Anchorage is within 9 1/2 hours by air of almost 90% of the industrialized world. [13] For this reason, the Anchorage International Airport is a common refueling stop for many international cargo flights and houses a major FedEx hub, which the company considers a "critical part" of its global service network.

Anchorage has won the All-America City Award four times: in 1956, 1965, 1984-85 and 2002, by the National Civic League.  It has also been named by Kiplinger as the most tax-favored city in the United States.

History
Main articles: History of Anchorage, Alaska and Timeline of Anchorage, Alaska
The Russian presence in south-central Alaska was well established in the 19th century. In 1867, the Secretary of State of the United States, William H. Seward, negotiated an agreement to buy Alaska from Imperial Russia for $ 7.2 million, or approximately two cents per acre ($ 0.1 billion in 2016 dollars).  His political rivals mocked the agreement as "Seward's madness", "Seward's fridge" and "Walrussia". In 1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain's arm.

The town of the store (called "The White City" in the handwritten title) at Ship Creek, photographed by Alberta Pyatt on July 1, 1915.
Alaska became a territory of the United States in 1912. Anchorage, unlike any other large city in Alaska south of the Brooks Range, was not a fishing or mining camp. The area surrounding Anchorage lacks significant economic metallic minerals. A number of Dena'ina settlements existed throughout the Knik Arm for years. By 1911, the families of J. D. "Bud" Whitney and Jim St. Clair lived at the mouth of Ship Creek and were joined there by a young gamekeeper, Jack Brown, and his girlfriend, Nellie, in 1912.

The city grew from its chance choice as site, in 1914, under the direction of Frederick Mears, of a railroad construction port for the Alaska Engineering Commission. The area near the mouth of Ship Creek, where the railway headquarters was located, quickly became a tent city. A city site was plotted on higher ground south of the town than the tent, which is noticeable in the years after its order and rigidity compared to other sites in the city of Alaska. In 1915, territorial governor John Franklin Alexander Strong encouraged residents to change the name of the city to one that had "more importance and local associations."  In the summer of that year, residents voted to change the name of the city; A plurality of residents favored changing the name of the city to "City of Alaska". However, the territorial government finally refused to change the name of the city. Anchorage was incorporated on November 23, 1920.

The construction of the Alaska Railroad continued until its completion in 1923. The city's economy in the 1920s and 1930s focused on the railroad. Colonel Otto F. Ohlson, general manager of the railroad born in Sweden for almost two decades, became a symbol of the contempt of the residents due to the firm control he had over railway affairs, which by extension became control over aspects economic and others of life in Alaska.


Fourth Avenue in 1953, looking east from near I Street. Just ten years earlier, the commercial area showed