Page 60 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Alaska

58  INTRODUCING ALASK A

Timber structures under construction on Main Street in Anchorage in 1915
The Gold Rush new territory from a useless outpost to a
After the purchase of Alaska, few Americans viable part of the USA. In the 1920s, Alaskan
had any interest in their new acquisition. Natives, along with other Native Americans,
However, the discovery of gold near Juneau were granted voting rights and then US
in 1880 and subsequently in the Canadian citizenship. The Alaska Railroad between
Klondike focused outside attention on Seward and Fairbanks was completed in
Alaska and led to a Gold Rush that lasted 1923, rejuvenating the city of Anchorage,
for nearly two decades. By the time the which had sprung up in 1914 as a railway
Gold Rush era ended around 1905, most construction camp and service center
Americans had lost interest in Alaska, for miners from the Kenai Peninsula.
but a small, steady stream of hardy men During the Great Depression of the
continued to head north in search of land to mid-1930s, President Franklin D Roosevelt’s
homestead. In 1900, the capital was moved New Deal established the Matanuska Valley
from Sitka to Juneau, and by 1906, Alaska Colony at Palmer. Some 200 farming families,
had a non-voting member mostly from the Midwest
in Congress; it gained states of Minnesota
official Territorial status and Wisconsin, were
barely six years after that. resettled here to try
their hand at farming
Developing the and raising dairy
New Territory cattle. Although the
In the years leading up to project enjoyed only
World War II, an increasing limited success, the
popu lation and interest area remains Alaska’s
in timber resources and Workers marching back to camp during the most productive
seafood transformed the construction of the Alaska Highway, 1942 farming region.

Gold panning in Nome 1914 Tent city of
1884 US Congress Anchorage founded
passes Organic Act, 1891 First oil claims 1900 Alaska’s as a construction
providing education to staked in Cook Inlet capital moved from camp for the
all residents of Alaska Sitka to Juneau Alaska Railroad
1880 1890 1900 1910
1880 Joe Juneau
1872 Gold and Richard Harris 1896 Gold 1902 Gold 1912 Novarupta
discovered unearth gold near discovered in the found near erupts; Alaska becomes
around Sitka present-day Juneau Klondike in Canada Fairbanks a US Territory

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