Alaska: Russia's Folly
Louis C. Kleber describes how the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Government at a price of just two cents an acre.
On March 30th, 1867, the American Secretary of State, William H. Seward, signed a treaty with the Russian Minister, Baron Edouard de Stoeckl, to conclude what was perhaps the shrewdest purchase in history – Alaska, 586,400 square miles of land, furs, fish, timber, minerals and gold. The price was $7,200,000; just two cents an acre.