OTD in History: Seward's Folly

Signed, sealed, delivered.

Yoinked from History Cooperative

I wrote a Hallmark-style romance called “Welcome to Timberville” on my old podcast. I might brush the dust off it and try to publish it under a pen name, just to see if it does any numbers. But instead of taking place in New England, it happened in the Greater, Whiter North.

You Are American…But We Do Not Grant You The Rank Of State

Alaska formally entered American possession in 1867. “Seward’s Folly” actually panned out in the end, but at the time it was a big chunk of land generally considered worthless, and it cost fifteen million dollars just two years after the Civil War.

There’s a rumor going around that Russia supposedly helped the US during the Civil War, and buying Alaska was a way of secretly paying them for it? I dunno, sounds tin-foil-hatty, I looked into it and it didn’t pass the smell test.

We got a boatload of gold and oil out of it though, which is cool, and we liberated roughly 1/12th of Canada from being lame and cringe. However, Alaska wouldn’t enjoy the blessings of statehood until 92 years later, in 1959, making the State of Alaska as old as my parents ha ha holy crap that’s SO OLD.