Utqiagvik: The Top of the World, Where America Ends and the Dark Begins

There is no road to Utqiagvik. There never has been, and likely never will be. To reach the northernmost city in the United States, you must fly over hundreds of miles of roadless tundra or arrive by barge during the brief summer window when the Arctic Ocean isn't frozen solid.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox journey’s to the edge of the world. While Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) might look like a temporary pioneer outpost to the uninitiated, it is actually one of the oldest permanent settlements in North America, with a history of Iñupiat habitation stretching back to 500 AD.

We explore the duality of a place that endures 65 days of total polar night and 80 days of never-setting sun. From the tragic 1935 plane crash that claimed the lives of American icons Will Rogers and Wiley Post to the "Cold War miracle" of 1988 where Soviet and American crews joined forces to save trapped whales, Utqiagvik is a place where history is as deep as the permafrost.

• 65 Days of Night: Why the polar dark isn't something the Iñupiat "endure," but rather a culturally significant season for storytelling and community.

• The Rogers-Post Crash: The story of the Iñupiat hunter who witnessed the death of a national icon in a frozen lagoon 15 miles from town.

• The 1961 "Duck-In": One of the earliest Native civil rights protests in American history, where the community defied federal hunting bans to protect their food security.

• Operation Breakthrough: How two trapped gray whales briefly thawed the Cold War in 1988, capturing the world's attention.

• Reclaiming the Name: The 2016 vote to restore the name Utqiagvik—"the place to gather wild roots"—and reject the name of a British bureaucrat who never visited.

If you’re drawn to the stories of the Far North and the resilience of the people who call the Arctic home, follow the show on Spotify.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music Explore more at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Portlock: The Village Everyone Fled From

Deep on the Gulf of Alaska coast, on the rugged southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, lies a ghost town that didn't die because the fish ran out or the economy collapsed. It died because of fear.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox takes us to Portlock (also known as Port Chatham), a place so unsettling that an entire community abandoned it simultaneously in 1950. Settled in the 1920s as a thriving salmon cannery town, Portlock’s story took a dark turn in the 1940s when mutilated animal carcasses, missing hunters, and bodies with inexplicable wounds began to appear.

We explore the legend of the Nantiinaq—a large, hairy, human-like creature rooted in Alutiiq tradition—and the chilling reality of a town that simply walked away, leaving buildings standing and artifacts scattered, never to return.

• The Cannery Boom: How Portlock briefly thrived as a commercial hub for the Gulf of Alaska’s fishing fleet.

• The "Nantiinaq" Reports: The chilling accounts from the late 1940s that led local elders to believe a traditional Indigenous cryptid had claimed the area.

• The Great Exodus: Why the entire population fled by 1950, leaving a working fishing village to rot in the salt air without an official explanation.

• Modern Echoes: The unsettling experience of modern visitors who find the "Unga-type" isolation of Portlock still carries the weight of its abandoned history.

If you have a taste for the strange and the unexplained corners of the American map, follow the show on Spotify to catch every stop on our journey.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Email: [email protected]

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music. Discover more of her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Eagle: The Last American Town Before Everything Became Canada

Situated on the banks of the Yukon River, just 12 miles from the Canadian border, sits a town that was once the "Gateway to the Interior." Today, it is a quiet sentinel of history at the end of the Taylor Highway.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox explores Eagle, Alaska—the first incorporated city in the Interior and the last American stop for fortune-seekers heading to the Klondike. We trace Eagle’s journey from a bustling hub of 1,700 residents to a peaceful community of 87, where the median age is 70 and the log cabins settle slowly into the permafrost.

We also recount the incredible 1905 detour of legendary explorer Roald Amundsen, who mushed 800 miles across the frozen wilderness just to reach Eagle’s telegraph station and tell the world he had finally conquered the Northwest Passage.

• The Border's Edge: Why Eagle became the seat of justice and the primary customs port for the entire Yukon River corridor.

• Fort Egbert: A look at the five surviving buildings of the military post that once maintained order on the edge of the world.

• Amundsen’s Telegram: The story of the Norwegian explorer who left his ship frozen in the ice to find the nearest "send" button—located right here in Eagle.

• The Melancholy Beauty of Aging: How Eagle watched the gold rushes of Nome and Fairbanks pass it by, choosing instead to grow old gracefully along the river.

If you're drawn to the quiet corners of the map and the towns that time forgot, follow the show on Spotify for more stories from the edge of the frontier.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: [email protected]

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music. Explore her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Chicken: Too Remote to Spell Ptarmigan

Deep in the Interior of Alaska, at the end of the Taylor Highway, sits a town that owes its name to a spelling bee that never happened.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox takes us to Chicken, Alaska—a community founded by gold miners a full decade before the Klondike became a household name. When it came time to name the post office in 1902, the locals wanted to honor the ptarmigan, the ubiquitous game bird that kept them fed through brutal subarctic winters. There was just one problem: nobody could agree on how to spell it. Rather than risk the embarrassment of a misspelled official document, they settled on "Chicken."

We explore the history of the "Sixteen Liars" (the area's first legendary storytellers), the life of Anne Hobbs Purdy (the famed schoolteacher known as "Tisha"), and the modern-day absurdity of a fast-food giant claiming to "buy" a town for 10,000 sandwiches.

• The "Sixteen Liars": Why the first 16 prospectors on the Fortymile River were more famous for their tall tales than their gold.

• Gold the Size of Cracked Corn: A look at the 1898 USGS report suggesting the name "Chicken" might actually refer to the size of the local gold nuggets.

• Anne Hobbs Purdy: The incredible story of the woman who arrived by pack train in 1927, married a miner, and raised 11 children in a town with no power grid.

• The Jack in the Box "Takeover": How a 2021 ad campaign "bought" the town to end the "Chicken Wars," and the $10,000 donation that actually helped the 12 year-round residents.

If you’re ready to visit a place where outhouses are still the standard and the "Chickenstock" music festival is the highlight of the year, follow us on Spotify.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Email: [email protected]

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music. Hear more at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Seldovia: The Boardwalk Town the Highway Killed Before the Earthquake Could

This is the only episode of Drive-Thru Towns where you actually cannot drive through the town. There is no road to Seldovia. To get here, you have to cross Kachemak Bay by boat or drop out of the sky by floatplane, arriving in a community that has been defined by its isolation since 1787.

In this episode, host Andrew Wilcox explores the "herring bay" that was once the bustling commercial heart of the region. We tell the story of the lost Seldovia boardwalk—a wooden main street suspended above the tides—and how it was "killed" twice: first by the arrival of the Sterling Highway in neighboring Homer, and finally by the catastrophic 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.

We also look at how Seldovia lives on in the popular imagination as the fictional town of "Kaneq" in Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, and why the real-life residents still choose the "island that isn't an island" long after the herring and the original boardwalk have vanished.

If you enjoyed this journey to a town beyond the pavement, please follow the show on Spotify to catch our next stop.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: A special thanks to Chloe Jones for the fluid, atmospheric score. Hear more of her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

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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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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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Whittier: The Town That Was a Secret, Then a Bunker, Then Itself

Most towns have a "welcome" sign. Whittier has a schedule. To enter this town, you must drive through a single-lane, two-and-a-half-mile mountain tunnel that only opens for cars once an hour. If you miss your window, the mountain simply says "no."

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox takes us through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel and into a vertical community tucked away in a radar-invisible Alaskan fjord. Originally built as a top-secret WWII military base to provide a deep-water, ice-free port, Whittier was designed for isolation. Today, nearly the entire population lives under one roof in the 14-story Begich Towers, a former Army barracks turned civilian "city."

From the haunting, asbestos-filled ruins of the Buckner Building to the interior hallways that connect the school, post office, and police station, we explore what happens when a military fortress becomes a hometown.

If you’re fascinated by the "City Under One Roof," follow the show on Spotify for more stories from the road less traveled.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Email: [email protected]

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the atmospheric and resonant score. Visit her at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

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Portage: The Town the Earth Swallowed

At Mile Marker 79 on the Seward Highway, a skeletal "ghost forest" stands frozen in the tidal mudflats. These white, salt-drowned trees are the only remaining headstones for Portage, Alaska—a town that quite literally sank into the earth.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox uncovers the story of a roadside junction where travelers once drank bourbon chilled with 1,000-year-old glacier ice. That all changed on Good Friday, 1964, when the second-largest earthquake in recorded history struck. In just four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the ground beneath Portage liquefied, dropping the entire town eight to ten feet and handing it over to the relentless tides of Turnagain Arm.

We explore the terrifying geology of liquefaction, the irony of a town built on a recurring disaster site, and the quiet erasure of a place that infrastructure created and nature reclaimed.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into Alaska’s sunken history, please follow the show on Spotify to catch every stop on our journey through America's disappeared places.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

• LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

• Email: [email protected]

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: Special thanks to Chloe Jones for providing the atmospheric score. Discover more of her music at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.