-YESTERYEAR-
The Word
ALASKA
came from the
Aleut term
"Alyeska"
(Al-ee-eh-skah)
which means
"The Great Land"
Archaeological digs indicate Alaska was settled nearly 6,000 years ago and there was frequent contact among the Dena'ina, Pacific and Chugach Eskimo tribes.
Early Russian traders, who had settled along the Pacific Ocean, heard rumors of this land. Even though at its closest point, the mainland of Alaska lies only 60 miles from Siberia, early explorers somehow missed finding it.
In 1725, a Dane, Vitus Bering, was appointed by Russia's Peter the Great to seek the fabled Northeast Passage through the Artic to India and China. On July 16, 1741, Bering landed a small party on an island near Prince William Sound, thus discovering "Alaska".
Captain Cook made his famous voyage to Alaska in 1778 and drew detailed maps of the area, naming such landmarks as Mount St. Augustine, Montague Island, Prince William Sound, Turnagain Arm and Cape Elizabeth.
The first permanent Russian settlement was established on Kodiak Island in 1783, and for the next 50 years, Russia explored and colonized the area.
Cook Inlet, first dubbed Cook's River by Lord Sandwich, renamed by George Vancouver in 1792.
After the Civil War, Secretary of State William H. Seward offered to buy the land for $7.2 million - less than 2 cents per acre. Though many called it "Sewards Folly," on October 18, 1867, the Stars and Stripes flew for the first time on Alaska soil. Thus, the U.S. acquired more than half a millon square miles of new territory and responsibility for seeing to the needs of a new population: 483 whites and some 27,500 Alaska natives.
In 1881, two prospectors discovered a mountain of low-grade gold ore near Juneau.
In 1898, gold was also discovered at Cape Nome on the Seward Peninsula and one of history's biggest gold rushes was on. In 1898 and 1899 alone, an estimated quarter of a million people started north for the "diggins".
It was not until 1912 that Alaska was granted true territorial status, with its own legislature.
It was designed by a thirteen year old seventh grader named Benny
Benson. His design won a state contest in 1926. The blue in the flag is for the state flower
(Forget-me-not) and the Alaskan sky. The gold is for the natural wealth. The Big Dipper and
North Star are symbolic for Alaska's position in relation to the heavens.
On June 30, 1958, Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Bill and on January 3, 1959, President Eisenhower proclaimed Alaska our 49th State.
