The U.S. formally took possession of Alaska
On this day · 18 October 1867
On Castle Hill in Sitka, the Russian flag came down and the American flag went up, completing a $7.2 million purchase.
On October 18, 1867, on Castle Hill in Sitka, the United States formally took possession of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Brigadier General Lovell H. Rousseau and Russian commissioner Alexei Pestchouroff met at the foot of the flagstaff; the Russian flag was lowered, the Stars and Stripes raised, and a brief exchange of words sealed the transfer.
The deal behind the ceremony had been struck in March, when Secretary of State William Seward agreed to pay $7.2 million in gold for a territory roughly the size of Sweden, Finland, and Denmark combined.
Critics mocked the purchase as “Seward’s Folly” — until gold and oil proved otherwise.
It was the nation’s first expansion into noncontiguous territory, and the date is still marked as Alaska Day. Russia, on the older Julian calendar, recorded the handover almost two weeks earlier, a quirk of competing calendars.
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