Southcentral Alaska, also known as the Gulf Coast Region, is the portion of the U.S. state of Alaska consisting of the shorelines and uplands of the central Gulf of Alaska. More than half of the state's entire population lives in this region, concentrated in and around the city of Anchorage. The region is Alaska’s best-connected region, with the Port of Anchorage, Ted Stevens, Anchorage International Airport, and the Alaska Railroad servicing the area.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough is a borough located in the U.S. state of Alaska. Its borough seat is Palmer, and the largest community is the census-designated place of Knik-Fairview. As of the 2020 census, the borough's population was 107,801.
Knik River is a census-designated place (CDP) in Matanuska-Susitna Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located 15 miles southeast from Palmer along the Knik River, it is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 792 at the 2020 census, up from 744 in 2010.
Palmer is a city in and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States, located 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway in the Matanuska Valley. It is the ninth-largest city in Alaska, and forms part of the Anchorage Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city is 5,888, down from 5,937 in 2010.
The Susitna River is a 313-mile (504 km) long river in the Southcentral Alaska. It is the 15th largest river in the United States, ranked by average discharge volume at its mouth. The river stretches from the Susitna Glacier to Cook Inlet's Knik Arm.
Knik Arm is a waterway into the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is one of two narrow branches of Cook Inlet, the other being Turnagain Arm. Knik Glacier empties into the Knik Arm. The Port of Anchorage is located on the arm.
The Denaʼina, or formerly Tanaina, are an Alaska Native Athabaskan people. They are the original inhabitants of the south central Alaska region ranging from Seldovia in the south to Chickaloon in the northeast, Talkeetna in the north, Lime Village in the northwest and Pedro Bay in the southwest. The Denaʼina homeland is more than 41,000 sq mi (110,000 km2) in area. They arrived in the south-central Alaska sometime between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago. They were the only Alaskan Athabaskan group to live on the coast. The Denaʼina have a hunter-gatherer culture and a matrilineal system. The Iditarod Trail's antecedents were the native trails of the Denaʼina and Deg Hitʼan Athabaskan Native Alaskans and the Inupiaq Inuit.
After congress approved the completion of the Alaska Railroad from Seward to Fairbanks in 1914, it was decided that a new town should be built as a port and rail hub along the route. The decision was made to develop a site near Ship Creek on Cook Inlet. Survey parties visited the area in 1914 and researched possible routes for the rails and options for siting the new town. Anchorage was originally settled as a tent city near the mouth of Ship Creek in 1915, and a planned townsite was platted alongside the bluff to the south. Anchorage was mostly a company town for the Alaska Railroad for its first several decades of existence.
The Knik Arm Bridge is a dormant proposal for a 1.74-mile (2.80 km) bridge across Cook Inlet's Knik Arm to link the two fastest growing parts of Alaska – Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The Knik River is a 25-mile-long (40 km) river in the U.S. state of Alaska. Its source is at Knik Glacier, from which it flows northwest and west and empties into the head of Cook Inlet's Knik Arm, near the mouth of the Matanuska River. It is bridged twice where the Old Glenn Highway crosses it near the Butte, and also bridged on the Hayflats.
Knik Arm ferry or Cook Inlet ferry, was a proposed year-round passenger and auto ferry across Knik Arm between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie in Alaska. The project was to use the MV Susitna SWATH / barge convertible expedition craft, which was built for US$80,000,000, to connect Alaska's financial center with the fastest growing community in Alaska, just two miles across water. No ferry landings were ever built, and the ship was never put into commission. Eventually, the Borough offered to either transfer the ferry for free to government entities in the U.S. in January 2013 or to sell the ship to a commercial interest. Sealed bids were taken through March 29, 2013. but the ship was not actually sold until 2016, for substantially below the cost of building it, just US$1.75 million
Government Hill is a neighborhood in the northwest part of Anchorage, Alaska, United States, sitting in between Anchorage's downtown area and the western reaches of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, specifically the portion formerly known as Elmendorf Air Force Base. The neighborhood is named for the "hill" it sits on of about 115 feet (35 m) bearing the same name, which is actually a bluff which rises alongside the northern banks of Ship Creek. The origins of the name date to 1915, when a federal land reserve was created in the area for the Alaska Engineering Commission, then heavily involved in constructing the Alaska Railroad nearby.
The City of Wasilla (Dena'ina: Benteh) is a city in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, United States and the fourth-largest city in Alaska. It is located on the northern point of Cook Inlet in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley of the southcentral part of the state. The city's population was 9,054 at the 2020 census, up from 7,831 in 2010. Wasilla is the largest city in the borough and a part of the Anchorage metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 398,328 in 2020.
Matanuska-Susitna Valley is an area in Southcentral Alaska south of the Alaska Range about 35 miles (56 km) north of Anchorage, Alaska. It is known for the world record sized cabbages and other vegetables displayed annually in Palmer at the Alaska State Fair. It includes the valleys of the Matanuska, Knik, and Susitna Rivers. 11,000 of Mat-Su Valley residents commute to Anchorage for work . It is the fastest growing region in Alaska and includes the towns of Palmer, Wasilla, Big Lake, Houston, Willow, Sutton, and Talkeetna. The Matanuska-Susitna Valley is primarily the land of the Dena'ina and Ahtna Athabaskan people.
The Whitney Section House, also known as Whitney Station, is a historic railroad-related building in Wasilla, Alaska. It is a single-story wood-frame structure, which was built in 1917 by the Alaska Railroad. It originally stood at mile 119.1, about 4.8 miles (7.7 km) north of Anchorage Station, and was one of a series built by the railroad and located at roughly ten-mile intervals. The area where it stood was taken by the federal government for Elmendorf Air Force Base, and was rescued from demolition by the local chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society. It now stands on the grounds of the Alaska Museum of Transportation and Industry in Wasilla, and has seen a variety of uses.
In 1935, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration created an experimental farming community known as the Matanuska Valley Colony as part of the New Deal resettlement plan. Situated in the Matanuska Valley, about 45 miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, the colony was settled by 203 families from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The colony project cost about $5,000,000 and, after five years, over half of the original colonists had left the valley. By 1965, only 20 of the first families were still farming the valley.
The Wasilla Community Hall, also known as the Wasilla Museum, now hosting the Dorothy G. Page Museum, is located at 323 Main Street in Wasilla, Alaska. The museum is located in a log building constructed in 1931 to serve as a community center. The exterior of the building was left largely as-is when it was converted to a museum in 1967. The interior houses displays about the history of the city of Wasilla.
The Blanche and Oscar Tryck House is a historic house on North Knik Street in Wasilla, Alaska. Built sometime before 1916 at Knik, it was the first house in Wasilla when the community was established, moved there by the Trycks in 1917. It is a single-story wood-frame structure, roughly rectangular in shape, with a concrete foundation and a corrugated metal gable roof configured to capture rainwater for laundry and other uses. It has a brick chimney and a root cellar, and has been vacant since Oscar Tryck died in 1964.
Teeland's Country Store, also known as Herning's Place and Knik Trading Company, is a historic retail establishment located at the corner of East Herning Avenue and North Boundary Street in Wasilla, Alaska. The oldest portion of this wood-frame building is a log structure at the back whose construction dates to 1905. Originally located at Knik, this log structure, then also used as a store, was moved to the newly established town of Wasilla in 1917 by its builder, O. G. Herning. Herning also built the present utilitarian wood-frame structure, which still operates today. The business was purchased by Walter Teeland in 1947, giving it its present name. In 1972 the store was purchased by Jules and Leslie Mead and Neil Gail Bridgewater.
The Matanuska Colony Community Center, also Palmer Historic District, is a cluster of buildings near the center of Palmer, Alaska that were the centerpiece of the Depression-era Matanuska Valley Colony. This federal rural resettlement program was intended to give needy families resources and land to improve their condition. The colony's buildings were erected beginning in 1935, and those that survive represent a well-preserved example of government community planning. It is centered on a city block bounded by East Dahlia Avenue, South Valley Way, South Denali Street, and East Elmwood Avenue, and extends to the north and south. The buildings on this block are organized around a grassy quadrangle, laid out in 1935. Prominent buildings include the Palmer Depot and three churches, located in the block just southeast of the quadrangle, one of which, the United Protestant Church, is a distinctive log structure. The colony's Central School, now added to several times, houses the offices of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
