Hope: Named After a 17-Year-Old Boy, Forgotten Like One Too

At Mile 56.3 of the Seward Highway, a 17-mile spur road dead-ends into a town that time—and the gold rush—nearly left behind. While the rest of the world remembers the Klondike, the real story of Alaska’s first major gold strike began here, on the shores of Turnagain Arm.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox takes us down the Hope Highway to a community of 70 people that outlasted its own history. We trace the steps of Alexander King, the mysterious prospector who found the first "color" and then vanished, and Percy Hope, the 17-year-old traveler who gave the town its name before fading into obscurity.

We compare the quiet survival of Hope with the ghost of Sunrise City, which was briefly the largest city in Alaska in 1898 with 800 residents, two saloons, and a brewery—only to be swallowed by the spruce forest just a few years later. It’s a story of "sister towns," lopsided luck, and the original path of the Iditarod Trail.

If you enjoyed this detour into the birthplace of the Alaska Gold Rush, please follow the show on Spotify to ensure you never miss a stop.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the evocative, rolling score. Visit her at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

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Eklutna: The Oldest Living Place No One Drives To

Twenty-six miles from the glass towers of Anchorage sits a village that has been continuously inhabited for over 800 years. While thousands of commuters blast past the Eklutna exit at 65 miles per hour every morning, they are passing a site that was already ancient when Marco Polo left Venice.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox invites you to hit the brakes at the oldest inhabited place in the metropolitan area. We explore the vibrant, painted Spirit Houses of the Eklutna cemetery—a unique architectural synthesis of Dena’ina Athabascan tradition and Russian Orthodox ritual.

We also uncover the heavy history of the 1915 influenza epidemic that silenced seven of the eight Dena'ina villages in the region, leaving Eklutna as a lone, resilient survivor. From the 1870s log church (the oldest building in the Anchorage area) to the diverted waters of Eklutna Lake, this episode is a meditation on continuity, memory, and the radical act of staying put.

If you enjoyed this look at the intersection of ancient history and modern highways, please follow the show on Spotify.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: A special thanks to Chloe Jones for the spare, haunting score that mirrors the Alaskan landscape. Discover her music at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Ninilchik: Where Russia Never Really Left

High on a bluff overlooking Cook Inlet, five gold onion domes catch the Alaskan sun, looking like a piece of the Old World that drifted across the Pacific and simply took root. This is Ninilchik, a town that the Russian Empire retired from—and then forgot to take with it.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox explores the "pensioner settlement" established in 1847 by the Russian-American Company. While the Tsar sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867, the people of Ninilchik remained in a state of crystalline isolation for another century. We dive into the mystery of Ninilchik Russian, a unique linguistic "time capsule" spoken nowhere else on Earth, and the haunting local legend of the Moose Lady—a folklore warning about the dangers of drifting too far into the wilderness.

Join us as we pull off the Sterling Highway to hear the stories of a community that stayed put while empires rose and fell around them.

If you enjoyed this journey into the Kenai Peninsula's hidden history, please follow the show on Spotify and join our community of road-trippers and history buffs.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the evocative music that brings these landscapes to life. Hear more of her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

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