Here's what it's like to visit Whittier, Alaska -- the 'town under one roof'
Brandt Ranj
Updated
Whittier, Alaska, is a small, remote town 60 miles south of Anchorage that is commonly referred to as the "town under one roof."
How small is Whittier? About 217 people live there, and it's accessible only by boat or a one-way, one-lane tunnel.
But the strangest thing about this town is that nearly all of its residents live in the same building, Begich Towers, a Cold War-era army barracks built in 1974. A police station, grocery store, clinic, church, convenience store, and school are all housed within the structure.
Begich Towers also has a bed and breakfast, and guests are welcome to come and observe how life goes on in the near one-structure town. Reddit user HyruleanHero1988 was curious to check out Whittier, so he visited the town during his last vacation. His girlfriend took plenty of photos and she shared them with us along with their observations of the peculiar town.
"This is what you see when you first approach Whittier," he writes. "The 2.5 mile tunnel that you have to pass through to enter the town is one lane only -- they switch the direction of travel every 30 minutes. You have to wait at these lights until they let you go."
This is the abandoned building where people lived back when this town was still a military base. This building was once the largest building in the state of Alaska 99 now it is abandoned.
There is a slight misconception about this town. Not everyone lives in the same building. I'd say about 80% do, but there are also some apartments separate from the main building. Also, while there is a grocery store inside the building, there is a bigger store in the town, about the size of the inside of a gas station. I didn't get any pics, unfortunately.