RASMUSON LUNCHEON Alaska Day February 29, 1956 Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and its Alaskan Affairs Section, I want to welcome you to "Alaska Day in San Francisco!" This event is an important milestone in Alaska-San Francisco relationships because it is the first time in my memory of Chamber affairs that we have gotten together at such a colorful event for the purpose of spotlighting the importance of our friendships and our continuing trade relations. With the sincere desire of increasing commerce and travel between our two great areas on the Pacific slope, we hope that this may be the first of many such meetings to bring together Friends of Alaska, We purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 for $7,200,000 -just about enough today to buy a couple of major league ball clubs--and it was called Seward's Folly. It has turned out to be about the only decent thing Russia ever did for us. I believe you might find it interesting to know that our trade relations date back more than one hundred years. And you'd never guess that the first article traded between Alaska and San Francisco was---ice! It was back in 1851 that a group of San Francisco businessmen made a deal for a cargo of ice with a Russian trading company. An American ship, the Bacchus, was sent to Sitka to bring 250 tons of Alaskan ice to San Francisco at a cost of 18 thousand dollars....about 4 a pound. The Alaska ice sold so successfully in our city that nine San Franciscans organized the American-Russian Commercial Company and signed a three-year contract with the Russians for delivery of ice to California ports at $35 a ton. The ice was harvested by native Kolosh