The Military is Big Business in Anchorage

On June 27, 1940, about 18 months before Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States entered World War II, the first military troops arrived in Anchorage, marking the beginning of a dramatic economic expansion that would last nearly two decades. In the words of Alaska historian Terrence Cole, Anchorage was a war boom town which never seemed to stop booming. By most accounts, the war put the Alaska Territory on the map and was the most important event in Alaska's history since the gold rush.