20 vintage photos of Alaska from before it became a state

• Alaska was controversially purchased by the US from Russia in 1867.
• Critics called the transaction "Seward's Folly" after William Seward, the US secretary of state.
• Alaska was officially made the 49th state in January 1959.

Russia sold the territory known as Alaska to the US in 1687, but Indigenous people have been living on that land for thousands of years.

One commonly accepted theory was that the first people traveled to North America from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge, although more recent discoveries suggest they made their way by sea.