The Rockefeller Forest is the largest remaining contiguous old-growth coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forest in the world. The forest is located in Northern California in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Avenue of the Giants, and is named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Father of Nelson Rockefeller, who in the 1920s made two $1 million donations to the Save-the-Redwoods League, which purchased forest land from the Pacific Lumber Company in 1931.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. has toured the forest with Save-the-Redwoods League officials and came away quite impressed by the giant coastal redwood trees.
Rockefeller had a special interest in conservation, and purchased and donated land for many American National Parks, including Grand Teton (hiding his involvement and intentions behind the Snake River Land Company), Mesa Verde National Park, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, and Shenandoah. In the case of Acadia National Park, he financed and engineered an extensive Carriage Road network throughout the park. Both the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway that connects Yellowstone National Park to the Grand Teton National Park and the Rockefeller Memorial in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were named after him.
Alaska is home to seven of the ten largest American national parks, the largest of which is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve. At 13.2 million acres, it’s larger than Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Switzerland combined.
The largest American national park outside of Alaska is Death Valley National Park, followed by Yellowstone National Park, Everglades National Park, and Grand Canyon National Park.
The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning “the mainland” or, more literally, “the object towards which the action of the sea is directed”. It is also known as Alyeska, the “great land”, an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Alaska is larger than the next three states, Texas, California, and Montana, combined.
The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railway, which operates both freight and passenger trains. It was originally owned and built by the U.S. government; its ownership was transferred to the State of Alaska in 1985. The route’s mainline is entirely within the state, extending from its northern terminus at Fairbanks, to its southern terminus at Seward; a rail marine barge port at Whittier provides a connection (via ocean barges) to Harbor Island in Seattle – this is the Alaska Railroad’s sole interchange with any other railway.
As the Native name “Denali” has been preserved for the mountain and park, the Aleut name “Alyeska” has been preserved in the form of Mt. Alyeska, which is located near the town of Girdwood, AK, 40 miles south of Anchorage. It is the home of the Alyeska Ski Resort, the largest of its kind in Alaska and a popular destination for sporty types and tourists. The same area is the home of Crow Creek Gold Mine, which was a producing mine for some years, but is now a tourist spot. I spent some good times there as a teen with my good friend whose grandfather owned the mine at the time.
The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel to Whittier AK is a shared tunnel between vehicular traffic and trains. It is often called the Whittier Tunnel. At a length of 13,300 ft, or 2.51 miles, it is the longest highway tunnel and longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America. The tunnel originated as a rail-only tunnel excavated in 1941–42. The tunnel was upgraded to bimodal use between September 1998 and mid-summer 2000. As motor vehicle speed in the tunnel is limited to 25 miles per hour, it takes about ten minutes to travel from end to end.
In 2019 we were up there and these are four pictures I took. The first was waiting in line while a train passed through.
The Lærdal Tunnel in Norway is the longest road tunnel in the world, at 24.51 kilometers (15.23 mi), connecting Oslo and Bergen. Work began in 1995 and completed in 2000. It relieved the need to rely on ferry connections and difficult mountain crossings during winter.
2000 marked the last full calendar year of Al Gore’s service as Vice President of the United States. He was narrowly defeated by George W. Bush in the presidential election that November.
During Al Gore’s undergraduate studies at Harvard University, he became friends with, and lived in the same dormitory as, a fellow member of the class of 1969, future actor Tommy Lee Jones.
Not in play: when I was composing my post, I did a little digging to see if I could confirm if they were actually roommates, or just friends and classmates. This WaPo article on Gore, from 1999, says:
Author Erich Segal based the character of Oliver Barrett in his novel Love Story on two Harvard students whom Segal had met there in 1968, while on sabbatical from his teaching position at Yale: Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore.
Arabella Babb Mansfield was the first woman attorney to be certified in the United States. Mansfield graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1866. She subsequently studied law at her brother’s law office for two years before she went on to take her bar examination. The all-male Henry County Bar Association granted her admission in 1869, amending Iowa state legislation to allow women the right to practice law. Mansfield never worked as a traditional lawyer, but she became a well-known educator and public speaker on women’s rights issues.
The Henry County Bar Association is located (per the mailing address) in McDonough, Georgia (USA). McDonough is the county seat of Henry County. The town was named for naval officer Commodore Thomas McDonough and founded in 1823 around a traditional town square design.
There have been several movie and TV shows filmed in and near the town, including:
The film A Madea Christmas was filmed in the town square and around McDonough.
The television show Resurrection was filmed in the town square and around McDonough.
Scenes for the 1989 Civil War film, Glory, were filmed in the city.
A pilot episode for Roswell was filmed on the city square at the old Phillips 66 service station.
The 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit was filmed primarily in Georgia in the cities of McDonough, Jonesboro and Lithonia.
Denzel Washington won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a defiant, self-possessed ex-slave soldier in the film Glory. Glory was nominated for five Academy Awards and won three: Best Supporting Actor for Washington, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound.
