The city of Palmer is a bedroom community to Anchorage, 40 miles to the south. But at the time of its establishment, the mission was to transplant 200 struggling farming families from the Midwest to Alaska where they would cultivate a new agricultural economy. In 1935, the down-on-their-luck families stepped off the Alaska Railroad in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys, deemed suitable by the government for farming. The soil was rich by Alaska standards but the growing season was just long enough for cool-weather grains and certain vegetables and there was little margin for error.

The farmers’ perseverance paid off, however, and today the Mat-Su Valley is Alaska’s breadbasket, producing 75 percent of the state’s total agricultural output. Palmer is famed for its 90-pound cabbages, seven-pound turnips and other monster root vegetables, the result of the midnight sun that shines up to 20 hours a day during the summer.

Palmer is striking because its appearance is a blend of Midwestern farming community and alpine paradise: old red barns and fields of hay are bordered by knife-edged mountain peaks. This downtown area exudes a 1930s ambience, as much of it has been preserved right down to the antique furniture and wood floors. The Palmer Visitor Center is a rustic log cabin next door to the Matanuska Valley Agricultural Showcase, a garden of flowers and the area's famous oversized vegetables. The Colony House Museum was an original farmhouse from the 1930s and is decorated with original furnishings.