Whittier, Alaska: The Town That Lives in One Building

At the end of a long fjord in Prince William Sound, hemmed in by mountains and glaciers, there's a town where nearly everyone lives under one roof. Whittier started as a secret. During World War II, the U.S. Army wanted an ice-free port in Alaska that would be hard for enemy bombers to find, hidden by mountains and frequent cloud cover. Crews drove a railroad tunnel through Maynard Mountain to connect it to the rest of the territory, and the rail spur was completed in 1943. The port took its name from nearby Whittier Glacier, which had been named for the poet John Greenleaf Whittier. After the war, the Army built big. First came the Buckner Building, finished in 1953, a massive concrete structure nicknamed the "city under one roof." Then came the Hodge Building, a 14-story apartment tower made of three connected sections, built in the mid-1950s for soldiers and their families. It was the first of 12 towers the military planned. None of the others were ever built. For a time, Buckner and Hodge were the largest buildings in Alaska. The Army left in 1960. In 1972 the Hodge Building was renamed Begich Towers, in memory of Alaska congressman Nick Begich, and it was converted into condominiums. The Buckner Building was abandoned, and it still stands derelict on the hillside above town. Today Begich Towers is the town. Its roughly 150 apartments house most of Whittier's residents, and the building also holds the post office, a grocery store and city services. Children walk to school through a tunnel that connects the building to the school, so they never have to go outside in bad weather. Getting to Whittier is its own adventure. For decades, the only way in was by train, boat or plane. That changed on June 7, 2000, when the old railroad tunnel reopened for cars as well. At 2.5 miles, the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is the longest highway tunnel in North America and the longest combined rail-and-highway tunnel on the continent. Cars and trains share a single lane, taking turns on a strict schedule, and the tunnel closes at night, sealing the town off until morning. Whittier has faced the sea at its most violent too. During the 1964 Alaska earthquake, a tsunami about 13 meters high struck the town and killed 13 people. Whittier is still there, with most of its people living together in a single building.