How a prophesy was fulfilled Secretary of State William Seward, who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Czarist Russia in 1867, predicted on his first visit to the northern possession that Alaska one day would become "a state or many states." Seward's prediction came true in 1959 when Alaska became the 49th and largest state. Little wonder this took ninety years. At first, Alaska was recognized as a military district and later as a territory with limited self-government. The movement toward statehood was frustratingly slow for its advocates given the powerful influence of outside mining,...