William H. Seward
William H. Seward, the 24th United States Secretary of State, negotiated the Alaska Purchase (also known as Seward’s Folly) with the Russians in 1867 for $7.2 million. Russia’s contemporary ruler Tsar Alexander II, the Emperor of the Russian Empire, King of
Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, also planned the sale;[38] the purchase was made on March 30, 1867. Six months later the commissioners arrived in Sitka and the formal transfer was arranged; the formal flag-raising took place at Fort Sitka on October 18, 1867. In the ceremony 250 uniformed U.S. soldiers marched to the governor’s house at “Castle Hill”, where the Russian
troops lowered the Russian flag and the U.S. flag was raised. This event is celebrated as Alaska Day, a legal holiday on October 18. Alaska was loosely governed by the military initially, and was administered as a district starting in 1884, with a governor appointed by the President of the United States. A federal district court was headquartered in Sitka. For most of
Alaska’s first decade under the United States flag, Sitka was the only community inhabited by American settlers. They organized a “provisional city government”, which was Alaska’s first municipal government, but not in a legal sense.[39] Legislation allowing Alaskan communities to legally incorporate as cities did not come about until 1900, and home rule for cities was extremely limited or unavailable until statehood took effect in 1959.
