The Handy State-by-State Answer Book: Faces, Places, and Famous Dates for All Fifty States

By Samuel Willard Crompton

Red State. Blue State. Rust belt. Sun belt. East Coast. West Coast. A look at the state of the 50 states, from Hawaii to New York, and Alabama to Wyoming. An engaging look at each state’s history, capitals, flowers, birds, famous citizens and more!

How did colonies, territories, and land purchases shape the United States of America? What differences—and similarities—are there between the states? What does each state bring to the union? When did each enter the union? What is their history, culture, and current population, and what might the future bring for each state?

From sea to shining sea, The Handy State-by-State Answer Book: Faces, Places, and Famous Dates for all Fifty States explores the history, growth, politics, people, and more of each of the 50 states. It is a resource for learning about the events and personalities that influenced and affected each state, its history, government, cities, and culture. It is a convenient place to look for state facts and trivia. It offers an engaging overview of how a union of states became the U.S.A, the background and history of each of its 50 states, and the current state of each state.

In addition to the state motto, nickname, and when it entered the union, The Handy State-by-State Answer Book answers intriguing questions about the people, places, and events thatlend a unique character to each state's boundaries, government, and places of interest, such as:

How much natural variety exists within California?

How important were—and are—the Beach Boys to the making of California’s culture?

What is the capital of Hawaii?

Are the Hawaiians themselves still in charge of their state and its economy?

How many artists, writers, poets, and sculptors have lived in Massachusetts?

Why was it so easy for the Pilgrims and the Puritans to take over eastern Massachusetts?

Is New York a city? A state? Or a state of mind?

How many artists and writers have attempted to do justice to the beauty that exists in New York State?

Is Mount Rushmore the place from which to view the accomplishments of the state and its people?

Who were the first inhabitants of what we call South Dakota?

Is it true that the people of Washington—and, indeed, most of the Pacific Northwest—are more liberal than their East Coast cousins?

Is it true that it never stops raining on the Washington coast?

Wide-ranging and comprehensive with nearly 140 illustrations, this information-rich tome also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness. A perfect companion for history buffs of all ages, The Handy State-by-State Answer Book: Faces, Places, and Famous Dates for all Fifty States is an ideal home reference and a convenient place to go to look up the basic facts and more of each of the 50 states

• Language: English
• Publisher: Visible Ink Press
• Release date: Jun 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781578596058

Book preview

ALABAMA

Nickname: The Heart of Dixie

Capital: Montgomery

Statehood: December 14, 1819; 22nd state

AT A GLANCE

Where does the state nickname come from?

Alabama is the heart of Dixie in that the Confederate States of America was established in Montgomery in February 1861. Beyond this, however, the people of Alabama are fonder of their Confederate heritage than almost any other former Confederate state.

What are the major symbols of the Heart of Dixie?

The state motto is We Dare Maintain Our Rights. This needs little translation, or explication, because Alabama is where the Confederate States of America was founded, in 1861.

The northern flicker (or yellowhammer) is the state bird, and the common camellia is the state flower. The longleaf pine is the state tree.

How large, or small, is Alabama?

The Heart of Dixie is 51,701 square miles (133,905 square kilometers). It is twenty-ninth in size among the states. Its population, as of the year 2010, is 4,779,736, placing it twenty-third in population among the fifty states.

Is Alabama the state that is clearest about its Confederate history?

Just about. The Confederacy was formed in Montgomery, in February 1861, and Alabamians are proud of their role in the Civil War. They are mindful, too, that their state went through some difficult times in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights struggle.

The Heart of Dixie has made some notable strides in recent decades. The state crossed the barrier from a rural to an urban majority as of the census of 1960; Alabama has also moved forward in industrial development. While it remains one of the great strongholds for Dixie sympathy, Alabama has entered the modern world.

Are Alabamians oriented more to the land or the sea?

It’s a great question. Though Alabama has only a short coastline, along the Gulf Coast, one part of its culture and economy has always been pointed in that direction. One sees this today with the fishing industry, and tourism as well. But as strong as the pull to the sea is, one finds an equal tug from the land. Alabamians are nothing if not proud of their connection to rural roots.

Alabama’s economy, in the early twenty-first century, derives the majority of its revenues from industry. Agricultural products continue to be harvested in large quantities, but they form a small percentage of the state’s overall generation of wealth.

How much variety is held within the state of Alabama?

A great deal. The central and southern parts of the state are part of the famous Black Belt, named for the dark-colored soil of the region, which produced more cotton than any other part of the South. But the north is mountainous, with many rivers, and the extreme southern part of Alabama is coastline, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) along the Gulf Coast. Then too, there are many forests in Alabama: about 65 percent of the state has tree cover.

Do Alabamians talk about the weather?

They certainly do. Even though old-timers know precisely what to expect—hot, damp, and humid—they still like to discuss the varieties and oddities that exist. When winter cold does come to Alabama, for instance, it comes as a great shock, and the state can virtually be shut down by an ice storm.

The single greatest threat is posed by tornadoes, however. Alabama is often hit and sometimes ravaged. In recent times the single deadliest outbreak came on April 27, 2011, when an EF4 tornado came through Alabama, hit Tuscaloosa on its eastward pass, and then backtracked to slam sections of Birmingham as it moved west. The maximum recorded wind speed was 190 mph (310 km per hour) and this was enough to cause $2.4 billion in property damage and to claim sixty-four lives (another 1,500 people were injured).

EARLY HISTORY

For how long have humans lived in what we now call the Heart of Dixie?

For thousands of years. In the late 1950s, the National Geographic Society made one of the outstanding archeological discoveries of our time, when its teams excavated Russell Cave in northeast Alabama. Humans have lived in that precise location since at least 6000 B.C.E., the Society declared, and it might well be the single longest inhabited place on the entire continent.

To be sure, we don’t know as much as we would like about the early inhabitants of Alabama. We suspect, however, that they lived much as their descendants, the Native Americans of the time of Hernando de Soto and the appearance of the first Spaniards. Alabama may have been something of a heaven for the archaic Indians, with plenty of fishing and hunting, and perhaps some farming as well.

Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto explored the southeastern part of North America in 1540, including what is present-day Alabama.

Did de Soto and the men of his expedition have anything good—or useful—to say about the Native Americans?

The Spaniards fought battle after battle in Alabama, always prevailing but becoming exhausted in the process. They found the Indians determined adversaries, and they noted the high level of organization that existed in the Native American villages. This was made even plainer by the travels of John Bartram, an eighteenth-century naturalist, who spent much time with the Creek Indians.

SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION

When did the first permanent settlements become established?

The French were first on the scene, erecting Fort Dauphin near present-day Mobile in 1702. At about the same time, a handful of Anglo-American merchants, most of them connected with the brisk trade in deerskins, found their way into Alabama, usually sending the trade goods back to South Carolina. There could have been a major confrontation between the English and French in Alabama, but a resurgence of Spanish interest in the region counterbalanced them. As a result, 90 percent of Alabama remained in Native American hands for longer than anyone expected.

Have the sites of any of the battles and skirmishes been uncovered?

Yes. Major archeological work was done in the 1990s, and we feel fairly confident both about de Soto’s route through Alabama and the location of most of the battles. In the process of that work, many people changed their mind about de Soto. Previously he was seen as a great European hero, helping to open the southeast to settlement. Today he is seen as much closer to a vagabond, or even a well-armed thief!

Did anyone anticipate the incredible fertility of the soil in south and south-central Alabama?

No one got a hold of this idea in the eighteenth century. Not until the early nineteenth century did the brand new United States show much interest. Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins went among the Creek and Choctaw Indians of the region, trying to interest them in becoming like the white people. He succeeded to such an extent that the Creek and Cherokee became some of the most acculturated of all Native Americans of that time. Hawkins’s work did not prevent the Creek War from breaking out, however, and this conflict spelled the ruin of most of what he’d achieved.

Was the Creek War a stand-alone conflict, or part of the wider conflict known as the War of 1812?

Even over the distance of 200 years, it is often difficult to give a precise answer to this question. The British, who had their eye on the Gulf Coast in general and New Orleans in particular, surely incited the Creek to fight the Anglo-Americans; from what we know of that tribe, however, they would not have undertaken any such action if their own leaders did not agree. All we can say for certain is that the Creeks attacked and captured Fort Mims in August 1813, thus igniting the Creek War. Most of the settlers of Fort Mims were massacred in the aftermath of the short siege.

The Creeks did not realize that the militia of the state of Georgia, the state of Tennessee, and the new Mississippi Territory were all determined on revenge. Led by General Andrew Jackson—who later became the seventh president of the United States—the militia smashed the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend; even Jackson, who was seldom squeamish, admitted that the carnage was simply dreadful. Perhaps 700 Indians died that day, in one of the largest Indian-white conflicts seen east of the Mississippi River. Jackson soon forced a peace treaty on the Creek, taking about seven-eighths of all their land in present-day Alabama.

How soon did the white settlers arrive?

Almost immediately. The end of the War of 1812 opened the door, and the spread of the so-called Cotton Kingdom proved a powerful incentive to farmers and merchants alike. Within a decade of Jackson’s military victory, much of Alabama was populated by white settlers, and the Creek and Cherokee—at least those who remained—were marginalized in the extreme. Even so, their losses were not complete. One year after becoming president, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, under which virtually all Indians were to be moved west of the Mississippi. Not all of them suffered this fate, but it was not for want of action on the part of the federal government.

The Trail of Tears removed the last of the Cherokee from northern Alabama and southern Tennessee. It is believed that 4,000 Indians died en route to the lands that were promised them.

Was it difficult for Alabama to attain statehood?

No. Alabama came into the Union in 1819, as the twenty-second state. The real struggle for power between Northern and Southern states came one year later, when Missouri applied for admission.

THE CIVIL WAR

Did Alabama become the richest of the Southern states?

No. Louisiana and Mississippi profited even more than the Heart of Dixie. But Alabama was queen of the South in that her culture spread to these other states, and beyond. Even among the desperados that founded the Republic of Texas, many Alabamians were found. And in the years leading to the Civil War, Alabama seemed the most belligerent of the Southern states.

African Americans, meanwhile, were brought to Alabama in great numbers. Many came overland, but others were smuggled through Mobile and the short Alabama coastline even after the U.S. Congress formally outlawed the slave trade in 1808. One can certainly ask whether race slavery in Alabama was any worse than that in other Southern states. The answer, on an anecdotal level, appears to be that it was. There was something about being so truly Southern, and so far removed from the North, that allowed the slaveholders of Alabama to be especially brutal.

I seldom hear much about Alabama’s contribution to the Confederate war effort. Why is this?

Perhaps it’s because Alabamians are so dead certain that they were the center and heart of the Confederacy that they no longer need to inform outsiders of the fact! South Carolina was the state that started the Civil War, and Virginia is where many of the big battles were fought, but it was a rare battle, or even skirmish, where Alabamians were not involved.

The president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was inaugurated in Montgomery on February 18, 1861.

Where does the wonderful expression Damn the torpedoes come from?

In August 1864, Union admiral David Farragut led a powerful fleet into Mobile Bay, one of the last ports still open to Confederate shipping. The Confederate forts opened fire, but reports that the waters were mined with torpedoes especially concerned Farragut. His lead ship hit a mine and sank almost immediately, leading many officers to believe the time had come to retire. Farragut thought for only a moment, then issued his famous order, Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! Perhaps he was just lucky; then again, fortune often favors the brave. In either case, Farragut’s fleet entered the harbor without any further losses. The city of Mobile held out for a few more months, but Farragut’s entrance meant that the Confederacy now lacked any substantial communication with nations overseas.

When did Alabamians lay down their arms?

As one might expect, Alabamians were among the last to admit defeat. By the late summer of 1865, however, the Heart of Dixie was as prostrate as the rest of the South. The Union had won fair and square, and Alabama would clearly be required to change many of its laws, as well as the basic rules of the game (those that had allowed so many African Americans to be enslaved).

How much did white Alabamians suffer under Reconstruction?

Like the other Confederate states, Alabama had to prove its worth and show some repentance just in order to get back in the Union. The state was placed under U.S. military rule, as part of the Third Military District, in 1867, but the occupation lasted only a year. Alabama wrote a new constitution, making plain that African Americans were citizens, but still placed some limits on their right to vote.

Throughout the former Confederate States, the Democratic Party became and remained the one of choice: there was a period where a person could not be elected dog-catcher without demonstrating allegiance to the Democrats. Some of the most extreme cases were seen in Alabama, and by the 1880s, white supremacy had been reinstated. New election laws made it nearly impossible for African Americans to vote, and share-cropping became the order of the day.

MODERN TIMES

What was life in Alabama like at the beginning of the twentieth century?

In some ways the state seemed hardly to have changed at all. Eighty percent of Alabamians lived in towns or villages, and the cities were small, at best. Manufacturing, however, had commenced in Birmingham and elsewhere: Alabama was starting to turn out iron, which became one of the mainstays of its economy.

Was sharecropping entirely a racial system, intended to keep blacks down?

That was at least two-thirds of the motivation, but plenty of poor whites suffered under the sharecropping system as well. Under its provisions, tenant farmers got to keep a share of their crop, while handing the rest over to the landlord, who looked a whole lot like the slaveholder had a generation earlier! Making matters worse, many sharecropping landlords required that their tenants purchase all their supplies at the local store, which often turned out to be owned by his brother or cousin. Some make the argument that sharecropping was a necessary evil, a way for the former Confederate states to make it through the dark times at the end of the nineteenth century. Even so, the system benefited a few at the expense of many.

People often ask why African Americans remained in racially oppressive states such as Alabama: the simple answer is that it was very difficult to leave. Starting around 1915, however, many blacks migrated north, to places like Chicago and Detroit, where they found work in the steel and automotive industries. The letters they sent home to relatives encouraged others to join them, and for a time Alabama was on the verge of losing population.

How did Alabama fare in the Great Depression?

The state was hard-hit, but its people were accustomed to economic difficulty. Many of them later claimed they could hardly tell the difference between the 1920s and the 1930s. Like so many other states, Alabama profited from the commencement of World War II: the state sent many young men overseas, and all sorts of industries turned out products for the military during the war. When World War II ended, Alabama looked much the same, but it had, beneath the surface, been fundamentally changed. By 1960, a majority of Alabamians lived in towns of 5,000 or more.

When did Alabama gain a place in the new aerospace industry?

In the 1950s the U.S. Air Force and then the Aeronautical Space Administration looked for a place to develop rockets. They settled on Huntsville, Alabama, which remains the central location for this vital part of the aerospace industry.

Why do so many of the most heartrending stories of the Civil Rights era come from Alabama?

Much of it had to do with identity. White Alabamians were by no means convinced they were wrong to have fought the Civil War; some were so delusional as to insist they had never really lost that conflict! In and around the city of Montgomery—named for one of the white officers under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend—thousands of African Americans traveled by bus each day to the homes of their white employers, where they cooked, cleaned, and washed the dishes (and sometimes participated in raising the white children). It was to this environment that Martin Luther King Jr. and other organizers came, and it was decided that Montgomery was a good place to demonstrate the power of nonviolent resistance.

What persuaded Rosa Parks to make her courageous stand, on December 1, 1955?

Rosa Parks did not intend to be a heroine: she was simply weary of going to the back of the bus whenever white customers came aboard. But on that fateful night, after she had boarded the bus following the end of her work shift, the white section filled up, and she refused to yield her seat to sit in the back of the bus. She was arrested, and something new was born: the Civil Rights movement.

The bus in which Rosa Parks famously stood up for her rights is now preserved at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

How long did the Montgomery Bus Boycott last?

Over a year. Following the arrest of Rosa Parks, day after day, African Americans chose to walk to work, or even take their chances hitchhiking, rather than ride the buses that were segregated on the basis of race. The white community of Montgomery was certain the bus boycott could not succeed, that the blacks would grow weary of walking all those miles. But the resistance gained strength each month, and in February 1956, the bus companies admitted defeat. From that point on, it was first come, first served when it came to finding seats on the public buses.

This sounds wonderful, a marvelous way to bring about change. But was it the end of the Civil Rights struggle in Alabama?

By no means. Birmingham became the center for white resistance to change, and in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led determined African Americans on a protest march through the city. The infamous chief of police, Bull O’Connor, had his men unleash attack dogs on the black protestors, but he had, for once, overplayed his hand. National television networks carried the scene on the news, and Americans—white, black, and other—were simply appalled. Almost from that day forward, the segregationist policy was doomed. This doesn’t mean that the segregationists gave up trying. Alabama governor George Wallace was one of the strongest opponents of desegregation, even declaring in his inaugural address when he first took office in 1963: Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. He fought his cause for more than a decade, and when he changed his mind, and declared he had been in error all along, it could not have been more momentous for the people of Alabama.

I’ve heard of Wallace. Wasn’t he also the victim of an assassination attempt?

While running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, Wallace was shot and wounded by Arthur Bremer, a native of Wisconsin, who seems to have been looking for someone to assassinate (he considered killing Richard Nixon, for example). Wallace received much sympathy (from whites and blacks alike) and the failed assassination attempt had a lot to do with his eventual change of heart. In time, Wallace came to believe that he was wrong about segregation, and asked for forgiveness; he even wrote Bremer, declaring his forgiveness for his would-be assassin.

How important was the rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd?

They were a cultural phenomenon. Until the early 1970s, Alabama was known for its folk musicians and country music, but it had not yet produced any rock-and-roll performers who could attract a youthful audience. This changed in a hurry.

In 1974, southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd brought out Sweet Home Alabama, an ode to the state and its culture (not to mention a biting response to fellow rocker Neil Young’s songs Alabama and Southern Man, though, ultimately, there was a respect between the two artists. The meaning was clear. Alabama could be vilified in the press, downplayed by the liberal-leaning national media, and perhaps scorned by many Northerners. None of this mattered to real Alabamians: they knew theirs was the best of states. Remarkably, many Northern audiences enjoyed the song, and the group, as much as their Southern counterparts.

These remain some of the best-known words about Alabama ever to be sung:

Big wheels keep on turning

Carry me home to see my kin

Singing songs about the south-land

I miss ‘ole ‘bamy once again, and I think it’s a sin.

What was the turning point for Alabama; the moment at which the state could not go backward?

It’s hard to pin it down too precisely, but it was definitely at some point during the 1980s. By 1990, Alabama had taken on a new appearance, that of a cultural anachronism that had shed many of its least-attractive qualities. Alabama did continue to play a major role in Southern politics, however. Where it once had been part of the Solid South, meaning an area where all the states voted for the Democrats, by 1990, Alabama was part of the solidly Republican South.

Where will the Heart of Dixie be a generation from now?

If recent history is our guide, the likelihood is that Alabama will continue to modernize. Perhaps it will never become a place where Northerners vacation by choice. But Alabama will, most likely, be more hospitable than before, and its climate will doubtless bring many visitors, from other states and other nations.

ALASKA

Nickname: The Last Frontier

Capital: Juneau

Statehood: January 3, 1959; 49th state

AT A GLANCE

Where does the state nickname come from?

The Last Frontier clearly applies to the fact that when Alaska came in as a territory, most of the Far West had already been spliced into territories and states. The expression became even more common in the twentieth century, as Alaska became known as the land of hardy folk who crossed the frozen landscape in dog-pulled sleds, and who prospected for oil.

What are the major state symbols?

The state motto is North to the Future. Officially adopted in 1967, this motto neatly coincides with the Alaskan vision of development and progress.

The willow ptarmigan is the state bird, and the forget-me-not is the state flower. The Sitka spruce is the state tree.

How large, or small, is the Last Frontier?

It is by far the largest of the fifty states, with 590,693 square miles (1,529,888 square kilometers). In all this vast area are only 710,231 people, as of the census of 2010. This means that Alaska is not only the largest of the fifty states, but it has, by far, the fewest number of people per square mile.

What can be said about Alaska that hasn’t been said before?

For those who have seen the Last Frontier, no words are necessary; for those who haven’t, no number of words can do justice to the raw, unspoiled beauty of Alaska. This is a land that time forgot for centuries, only to rediscover about the time of the American Civil War. This is a landscape that is constantly being reforged, primarily by snow and ice. And this is where the last of the frontier peoples go, to taste something utterly unlike life in the Lower Forty-Eight.

How different is life in Alaska from, say, the Pacific Northwest?

Even though Washington and Oregon are much closer to Alaska than other parts of the nation, even the Pacific Northwest differs considerably from the Last Frontier. While in Washington and Oregon, one can find easy access to metropolitan areas and sophisticated urban living. This is not true in Alaska, where even some of the cities have streets—in some sections—made of mud.

Is there any place in Alaska where the natural scene does not dominate?

There is, perhaps, a tiny section of streets and intersections in each of the few cities, but the minute one departs the city proper, he or she is immediately back in the grip of Mother Nature. And this is the beauty of it: most Alaskans would rather live, and die, at the hand of nature than anything manmade.

Just how big is Alaska?

It is more than twice the size of Texas, which takes some reflection to really absorb. If Alaska were placed smack in the middle of the United States, it would take up one-fifth of the total. And in all this immense, rugged landscape are found fewer than 800,000 human beings. Alaska is extraordinary for the place it fills in the United States, but it is also a citizen of the world. Only Siberia and sections of Australia come even close to it in terms of natural beauty mixed with the feeble, fragile hand of humans.

The Trans-Alaska pipeline taps into Alaska’s rich oil fields. Constructed in the 1970s, it runs 800 miles (1,270 kilometers) from Prudhoe Bay in the north to Valdez in the south.

Do Alaskans discuss the weather much? And if so, what do they say?

Alaskans do talk about the weather, but they do it with the attitude of longtime veterans, who expect to handle whatever is thrown at them. When outsiders come to inquire, they are told, with a smile, that Alaska’s weather is unpredictable, and that one can move from sweaters to undershirts, and from two layers to four in the blink of an eye.

We all know that Alaska is famous for its long stretches of cold weather. Does it ever experience the opposite?

Yes indeed. The single lowest temperature recorded in Alaska was –82 degrees F (–62 degrees C) at Prospect Creek on January 23, 1971. Given that this took place just as the national conversation about the Trans-Alaska pipeline gathered steam, it caused no end of commentary. Could any pipeline—no matter how well-designed—stand up to weather that brutal? So far, the pipeline has stood the test of time.

The single highest recorded temperature was 100 degrees F (38 degrees C) at Fort Yukon on June 27, 1915. This temperature spike did not cause much conversation at the time. What has led to many conversations is the way in which Alaska was spared from the terrible cold that afflicted the Midwest and northern sections of the Lower Forty-Eight in 2014 and 2015. In 2015, Time Magazine declared Alaska ground zero for discussions of climate change, because the Last Frontier was seeing greater variance than any other, with most of the variance headed in the direction of warmer temperatures.

Is there a recognizable Alaskan culture? And can the Alaskan be told apart from his counterpart in British Columbia or the Yukon?

Alaskan culture is an intriguing mixture of Washington State, Oregon, Russia, and the oldest of the Native American experience. Alaska is the first place to be inhabited by the hunter-gatherers that came across the Land Bridge about 20,000 years ago, and given the number of glaciers that were in their way, these early Indians may have remained in Alaska for a very long time. The Native Americans that one meets, therefore, are among the oldest of all.

Engraving of a gold miner camp in the Klondike in 1898.

Washington State and Oregon both exerted an outsized influence on Alaska in its early years, because Seattle and Portland were the two major ports of embarkation for those heading to the Gold Rush in the Klondike. Jack London was a Pacific Northwest person, but his writing was deeply informed by the year he spent in Alaska. And finally, although the Russian imperial adventure did not last very long, there are vestiges of Russian culture to be found in Alaska today.

EARLY HISTORY

For how long have humans lived in what we now call the Last Frontier?

For roughly 20,000 years. The Siberian tribespeople who crossed the Bering Land Bridge were, to our knowledge, the first humans ever to come to the Americas, and their descendants can be found all the way from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. We don’t know very much about the lives of these early Native Americans, but we suspect they had short and exciting lives, meaning that the struggle to survive was a mighty endeavor. They may have fought woolly mammoths; almost certainly they wrestled with whales and other sea creatures. The chances are that they did not farm much at all: farming did not become part of the human experience until about 10,000 years ago.

When did people from outside Alaska first hear anything about Alaska?

To our knowledge, this did not happen till the eighteenth century. A few Japanese fishermen may, by chance, have been tossed up on Alaska’s shores, but they did not leave any record of their adventures. The Russians, therefore, form our first modern knowledge of the Last Frontier.

During the reign of Czar Peter the Great (an outsized personality if ever there was one), Russia expanded all the way to Kamchatka and the Pacific Ocean. Kamchatka, which is almost as big as Alaska, was a huge project unto itself, but the Russians pressed on eagerly, and in 1741 Vitus Bering caught the first known view of Alaska. He came back the following year and is properly credited as the first outsider to really learn anything about Alaska, even though he died in 1743.

What brought the Russians back, a few decades later?

The pelts of sea otters. These fetched a high price in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and Russian adventurers were willing to go a very long way to obtain them. The Russians visited the Alaskan coast every year or so for decades, but it was not till the end of the eighteenth century that they came back in strength. The Russians established Sitka as their first real town, and the first Orthodox Church was built there. Alexander Baranov, a Russian nobleman, became the leader of the colony.

Was there ever a genuine chance that Russia would establish an empire in Alaska?

The chances were remote, but not out of the question. It was during the reign of Czar Alexander I—best known as the czar who fought Napoleon—that Russian influence reached its height, and during the long reign of his younger brother, Czar Nicholas I, that Russian power waned. Russia certainly had the manpower eventually to populate Alaska, but the physical distances were very great.

The Tlingit Indians struck in 1803, wiping out the settlement, but the Russians exacted a terrible vengeance. By now, the Russians had acquired many of the Aleutian Islands. And in 1812, the year war was declared between America and Britain, the Russians went all the way to the coast of California, to establish Fort Ross. This was the maximum extent of the Russian movement, however.

ALASKA IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION

Did the Americans, or their nation, know anything about Alaska at this time?

Only the tiniest bit. Americans were still learning about Oregon and California. But during the 1840s and 1850s, just enough information filtered in that some of the leaders in Washington, D.C., became interested. One of them was William H. Seward.

First governor of New York, then a U.S. senator, and finally the secretary of state, Seward enjoyed a distinguished career. Throughout the 1860s, he was aware that Russia was weary of its imperial experience, but not until 1867 did he learn that Czar Alexander II was ready to sell the icebox. Negotiations were completed in a remarkably short time, and in April 1867, the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty that brought Alaska to American control for the price of $7.2 million. This was one of the great real estate acquisitions of all human history, but everyone did not see it that way at the time. Some newspapers congratulated Seward for bringing it about, while others labelled the whole endeavor as Seward’s Folly or Seward’s Icebox.

If the treaty was so controversial, why was it so easily approved by the U.S. Senate?

Seward had previously been a U.S. senator from New York, and he understood the deliberations and predilections of that legislative body. Seward was able to pitch the treaty in such a positive manner—including promoting the vast beauty of Alaska’s natural resources—that the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the purchase.

How might international history have been different, if Seward had not purchased Alaska?

The chances are that the Russians would not have found another buyer and that Alaska would have been a burdensome part of their far-flung empire for many decades. But in the twentieth century, Communist Russia—or the Soviet Union—would have ended up with possession of Alaska, and that would have made matters quite different. Americans were nervous enough during the Cold War; they would have been much more apprehensive if Russia held Alaska.

How long did it take for Americans to start going, or moving, to Alaska?

Nearly three decades. The first Americans to move to the Last Frontier were interested in getting rich quickly and then moving back to the West Coast in a hurry. Very few people saw much potential in Alaska, which was too cold, too foreign, and just too darned far away. It took the discovery of gold in British Canada to change that perception.

Are you saying that the Alaska Gold Rush was not in Alaska?

That’s correct. We Americans tend to be so nationalist-centered that we don’t even realize that the great discovery of gold in the Klondike was actually on the Canadian side of the boundary in the Yukon Territory. Quite a few Americans were involved in the early discovery, however, and as the news spread, more Americans than Canadians picked up the axe and pan to move northwest.

The single biggest barrier was formed by Chilkoot Pass. Eight hundred feet high, this mountain pass saw some of the coldest weather in Alaska, and each one of the prospectors coming from the United States had to pass this way. Many newsreels were made, showing would-be miners struggling up the slopes, and film star Charlie Chaplin later made hay with the scene in his film The Gold Rush.

How many of these miners became rich?

Very few. Perhaps 80,000 people made it to Alaska and the Yukon between 1897 and 1901: rather few of them remained. Novelist Jack London, who made the trip and lived to tell the tale, came home with only $5 worth of gold dust in his pocket. Of course there were the lucky few who made a pile of money, but even of these, only a few still had their earnings a decade later. Gold rushes are definitely part of the American experience, but they seldom benefit very many of the actual miners.

WORLD WAR II

When did the settlement of Alaska really begin to take off?

Not until World War II. World War I made only a tiny difference to residents of the territory of Alaska. As late as 1940, there were fewer than 60,000 people in the state. Two things conspired to make Alaska better-known to the rest of the nation, however. First came World War II, and then came the bush pilots.

In 1942, as a diversion to distract the Americans from the much more critical Battle of Midway, Japan landed forces that captured two Aleutian Islands: Kiska and Attu. Over the next year, nearly 155,000 American soldiers were brought to bear, to eject a total of fewer than 10,000 Japanese. The first island, Kiska, was a bitter struggle, and less than 1 percent of all the Japanese who fought were taken prisoner. The second island, Attu, was a walkover, because the Japanese had already evacuated. In total, perhaps 200,000 Americans, and consequently their families back home, became more aware of Alaska and what it had to offer.

How and when did the bush pilots go to Alaska?

The flying of aircraft began in the Midwest, but it soon became quite popular in the Pacific Northwest. Until World War II, rather few pilots went north to Alaska, because they had better fields of operation—and larger crowds—in Washington and Oregon. Almost immediately after World War II’s conclusion, however, former U.S. Navy pilots began moving to Alaska and earning good money delivering the U.S. mail. This was only the beginning of what became a rage among aviators: to move to Alaska, even if only for a short time. And as a result, parts of the interior previously known only to Native Americans and Inuit suddenly became more open to settlers from the south.

Was statehood a difficult battle for the people of Alaska?

It was, not least because they were so divided on the matter. As late as 1946, a referendum showed only a few thousand more in favor than opposed. And in the U.S. Senate, there were many interests, economic ones especially, that thought it better for Alaska to remain a territory, so that its mineral resources could be developed and used for the good of the nation as a whole. Oddly enough, it was a U.S. congressman from Albany, New York, Leo O’Brien, who pushed the hardest and the longest for statehood; even so, it seemed likely that Hawaii would be admitted as the forty-ninth state and Alaska as the fiftieth.

The logjam was finally broken, and on January 3, 1959, under the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower, Alaska entered the Union. It came in as the forty-ninth state, just over seven months ahead of Hawaii.

What is unique about Juneau, the state capital?

Unlike most state capitals, which tend to be in relatively central locations of a state, Juneau is in the far southeastern part of the state (the largest state at that). Juneau, named after prospector Joseph Juneau, is the only U.S. capital whose general area borders a foreign country; it is located about forty miles from Canada. But don’t try driving there: there are no roads leading into or out of the city, so all goods and citizens/tourists arrive via air or water.

OIL AND ENERGY

Was this when Americans finally became aware of the good reasons for moving to Alaska?

Not quite. Even in the 1960s, it was only the hardiest, and perhaps most adventure-some, Americans who came north from the Lower Forty-Eight. Continuing a long tradition, they tended to remain only a few years, and then return, greatly enriched by the experience. At least they told their family and friends about Alaska, and the Last Frontier became more visible in the eyes of other Americans. But it took the discovery of oil to really put Alaska, once and for all, on the map.

In the late winter of 1968, engineers from ARCO stumbled on one of the greatest oil reserves in the entire world. The waters of Prudhoe Bay, on Alaska’s North Slope, contain an estimated 25 billion barrels of oil, meaning that this area has more oil even than Saudi Arabia. The discovery immediately made Alaska much more popular, not only for the oil itself, but also for the revenues, a portion of which, it was promised, would be divided among the residents of the state.

When did the controversy over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline commence?

Almost immediately. Millions of Americans were gung-ho, declaring that the Alaska oil discovery was the greatest find of the twentieth century, and that it would deliver energy independence to them. Millions of others declared that Alaska was one of the last un-spoiled places on earth and that it would be a tragedy to risk oil spills in that pristine area. The battle between the oil enthusiasts and the environmentalists would test the tempers of people in Alaska and Washington, D.C.

One of the most poignant issues raised had to do with the caribou, who, for millennia, have migrated across Alaska twice a year. How would the caribou find their way? Would the proposed pipeline doom them as a species? In the end, it was decided to have the pipeline lifted several feet off the ground, placed on stilts, so the caribou could pass underneath. This compromise pleased few people at the time, but it seems to have worked rather well for the caribou.

How long did it take to create that vast pipeline?

Though longer pipelines had been laid, they were all in sunnier, warmer climates. Building the Alaska pipeline meant that thousands of workers came from the Lower Forty-Eight to work long hours in the cold. They earned good, even excellent, money, and their reports home helped to fuel a continuing trickle of new arrivals in Alaska. One of the big negatives that the oil pipeline workers explained to family and friends, however, was the high cost of living in the Last Frontier. On average, commodities such as peanut butter, bread, eggs, and milk cost about 1.5 times as much as in the Lower Forty-Eight. The pipeline was completed in 1977.

What was the single worst day of Alaska history?

Beyond doubt this was on March 27, 1964, when an extremely powerful earthquake shook the state. The 9.2 mega-quake struck central and southern Alaska with deadly force. Port Valdez suffered a massive underwater landslide; thirty people were killed. In total, the quake and the resulting tsunamis killed 139 people. The property damage was estimated at $311 million.

The shock to the spirits of the people of Alaska was severe.

POPULARITY OF THE STATE

When did Alaska become boom country?

In the 1990s and early 2000s, many Americans left the Lower Forty-Eight in search of more elbow room. They arrived in Alaska to become some of its most productive citizens, involved in fishing, lumber, and the tourist trade. A number of movies were filmed, leading to the general perception that Alaska was one of the best places to be. And while we’re on that subject, the television series Northern Exposure was surely one of the most positive influences for the state.

Shown on CBS between 1991 and 1998, Northern Exposure attempted to show Alaska as a very modern place—one to which an ex-astronaut might retire—and one where all sorts of madcap adventures might be expected. Joel, the village M.D., came all the way from America’s East Coast to minister to the people of this little town, only to find they had quite a few things to show him about health and well-being.

How significant was the rise of Sarah Palin?

In the summer of 2008, Republican presidential candidate John S. McCain, of Arizona, surprised almost everyone by picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The first reports were somewhat shocking: that this middle-aged woman did not speak proper English and that she was a master of the off-the-cuff speech. That perception changed the night she accepted her party’s nomination, however. Palin showed herself a master of the cut-and-slash political technique, and she seemed to cultivate sympathy from voters, who did not wish to see her skewered. She performed well in the vice presidential debate with Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, but the McCain-Palin ticket lost the general election.

By rights, that should have been it, and Palin would have been lauded by many for her courage and skill, even though these were not enough to prevail. Palin made some poor moves over the next few years, however. She resigned as governor and devoted herself to a series of bus trips, as well as a reality TV show. In 2016, she endorsed Donald Trump, the maverick New York businessman, for the Republican presidential nomination.

Sarah Palin was Alaska’s governor and a vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket when Senator John McCain ran in 2008.

Why do discussions of climate change so often bring up discussions of Alaska?

As Rolling Stone magazine expressed it, in the autumn of 2015, Alaska had become ground zero for discussions of climate change and its attendant results. The tundra was melting; the Arctic Ocean was becoming more ice-free; and nowhere else in the United States were the lives of common people changed so dramatically. President Barack Obama made a special point of visiting Alaska in 2015 to point out his commitment to fighting the battle—which some claimed had become a war—against the negative effects of climate change.

What will Alaska look like a generation from now?

Physically, it will look very much the same, with the soaring mountains, sudden valleys, and calls of the wild that can still rivet a person. Politically and socially, Alaska may well go through some big changes.

ARIZONA

Nickname: The Grand Canyon State

Capital: Phoenix

Statehood: February 14, 1912; 48th state

AT A GLANCE

Where does the state nickname come from?

For once, the answer is so plain and clear that it hardly need be stated. Anyone who has ever seen the Grand Canyon, even in photographs, can see why the state would choose to align and identify itself with this superb work of nature.

What are the major state symbols?

God Enriches is the state motto. This has been a powerful theme in Arizona history from the time of the earliest Spanish explorers. They came seeking gold, and believed that the Almighty was on their side, that He wanted them to succeed.

The cactus wren is the state bird, and the blossom of the saguaro cactus is the state flower. The palo verde is the state tree.

How large, or small, is the Grand Canyon State?

We would naturally expect the state identified by the Grand Canyon to be large, and Arizona, at 113,990 square miles (295,235 square kilometers) is sixth among the states in geographic size. As of the year 2010, there were 6,392,017 people in Arizona, making it sixteenth among the states in terms of population.

One of the most amazing natural wonders of the world, Arizona’s Grand Canyon was slowly dug out over millions of years by the Colorado River.

Is there more to Arizona than the Grand Canyon?

Yes indeed. One could easily spend a week at the Grand Canyon and not exhaust what it has to offer. But if the tourist then heads south, he or she will be rewarded by some of the most amazing scenery to be found in the Lower Forty-Eight.

Mesas tower over the scene, while canyons—large and small—crop up all over the place. Enormous sections of land appear, where nothing but cactus grows, and then the scene yields to where the hand of humans has established blooming fields of agriculture. Of course it’s all on loan—dependent on the irrigation systems—but that’s part of the appeal. The people of Arizona live on the edge, and they know it.

Is there any part of Arizona where the hand of nature is not shown?

Recently some of the suburbs of Phoenix have become so crowded that one can almost feel as if he or she is in the Midwest. All that person has to do, however, is look up, at the mountains in the background, to know that this place is truly different.

Do Arizonans talk about the weather very much?

Not like the rest of us do. They aren’t afraid of hurricanes, and tornadoes don’t strike their state. The people of Arizona do keep their eyes on the sky, however, because they are always hoping for rain. Most sections of the Grand Canyon State receive only four inches of precipitation per year, so the people have to be on the lookout. They’ve become expert at trapping and holding water wherever possible.

Can the Arizonan be picked out of a crowd, identified from his fellow Southwesterner?

Definitely. Until the 1990s, Barry Goldwater, the longtime U.S. senator from the Grand Canyon State, personified the Anglo Arizonan. Long, lean, and permanently tanned, Goldwater was a man’s man, much liked by his peers, even when they chose to vilify him as an extreme Republican. Goldwater was the Uncle Sam stereotype for Arizona.

Born in Phoenix in 1915, Goldwater was an adventurer at heart: like John Wesley Powell, he canoed down the Grand Canyon. Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952, Goldwater became the exemplar of a new type of American conservative: one who was fairly centrist on social policy, but dead-set on winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Well-liked by his colleagues, Goldwater ran for president in 1964. He secured the Republican nomination but was lambasted by attack advertisements that echoed his words, bomb them back to the Stone Age. Some of his comments were taken out of context, but Goldwater did not complain. He was too proud for that. Though he was swamped by Lyndon B. Johnson in the battle of the cowboy hats (both men were Westerners and proud of the fact), Goldwater remained one of the most popular and well-respected men in Washington, D.C.

Since his death in 1993, Arizona has searched for a similar type of Everyman and it largely has come up short. This isn’t really the fault of the Anglo population: it’s just that Arizona has become much more interesting, and varied, in its population.

EARLY HISTORY

For how long have humans lived in what we now call the Grand Canyon State?

For thousands of years. We don’t know how many people managed to scratch a living out of the Arizonan desert, but there is no doubt that they were there from almost the earliest of times. Not only did they live in Arizona but they developed early forms of irrigation that were in the neighborhood of present-day Phoenix.

When the first Spaniards arrived, they asked the Native Americans who built these systems and they received only shrugs, and the odd answer, the ancient ones. The Anasazi, as they are known, disappeared by about the thirteenth century of our common era. Whether they are the ancestors of the Native Americans of Arizona today is difficult to say. Many theories have been proposed, including the rather outlandish one that the Anasazi were so highly developed that extraterrestrial beings scooped them up!

What did Arizona look like to the first European explorers?

Coronado came north from Mexico City in 1540, looking for silver and gold. He’d hear stories of the Seven Lost Cities of Cibola, and when a Franciscan priest came back from Arizona, saying he’d seen them, Coronado hastened forward. Perhaps the good priest simply saw the bright Arizona sunlight playing off the roofs of the Indian houses. In any case, soon after arriving, Coronado realized he’d been deceived. He and his men pushed on to the north. One of his groups saw, but did not descend to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Why didn’t Spain do more with the lands Coronado explored?

Imperial Spain was overstretched, and it had plenty of other desert-like areas similar to Arizona (including the Sonoran Desert in northern Mexico). Spain, therefore, did almost nothing about Arizona, and nearly two centuries passed before any more explorers and missionaries went to what is now the Grand Canyon State.

Tucson was established as a military outpost around 1780. That was also the time of Brother Escalante, one of the greatest of all the Spanish explorers. He pioneered new trails across Arizona and was exploring the state at the same time that the Anglo-Americans approved the Declaration of Independence.

What did the brand new U.S. government know about Arizona?

Virtually nothing. Not only was it under Spanish control, but there were no trade routes between the Southwest and the East Coast. Of the different European peoples, only the Spaniards knew much about Arizona, and they weren’t telling anyone else.

FROM MEXICAN TO AMERICAN RULE

When did Arizona first become involved with the United States in any way?

The Mexican Revolution of 1811–1821 proved the catalyst. Mexico overthrew Spanish rule and established the new Republic of Mexico. Meanwhile, Anglo-Americans became aware of Arizona because of the Santa Fe Trail, the movement of wagons and goods from Independence, Missouri, to central New Mexico.

The U.S.-Mexican War of 1846–1848 was the second big event that propelled the United States westward. Through the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the United States gained possession of all of New Mexico and Arizona, even though many East Coast Americans did not see these areas as terribly important.

Who were the first white Americans to reach the floor of the Grand Canyon?

This was accomplished by Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives and a party of explorers, dispatched by the federal government in 1857. They came up part of the Colorado River on a steam-boat and then marched through areas that had seldom been seen by any whites. On an April morning in 1858, Ives and his party descended to the floor of the Canyon. Though they had no photographic equipment, the journey’s artist rendered some impressive sketches. In the journal of the expedition, Ives predicted that his group would be the last whites ever to see this region, because it had nothing of great value and was so separated from the rest of the nation. His might be one of the worst predictions made by any nineteenth-century American explorer!

Why is the story of John Wesley Powell so much better-known than that of Joseph C. Ives?

For one thing, Ives—who was a native of Connecticut—joined the Confederacy during the Civil War: he is therefore not