Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

In the end, what saved the colony and eased its transition into a regular settlement was the 1940 construction of nearby Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Base in Anchorage, which offered a job market as well as a farm market. Some critics called the Matanuska colony a social experiment gone awry—just another socialist New Deal scheme of that damn Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Others sang FDR’s praises and called it the best thing that ever happened to them. One thing is for certain. The towns of Palmer and Wasilla still stand, and as home to Alaska’s State Fair, the Matanuska Valley is about as much farm country as one is apt to find in the far north.