In the Alaska capital of Juneau is the state history museum, well worth a two or three-hour visit. The exotic Alaska Territory, purchased from Russia in 1867 for two cents an acre, became the 49th state in 1959. It was considered a forbidding landscape and “Seward’s Folly” for decades until gold was discovered on the beaches of Noem in the 1890s, leading to a gold rush of get-rich-quick schemers as well as pioneers and settlers.
Even today the population is only about 750,000, just enough for one representative in Congress. The small population does have two U.S. senators, more than Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia. Politically-engaged locals expect retail politics, personal attention, and even phone calls from their senators.
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