Publications about the town of Whittier are widespread on the Internet - it so happened that all the townspeople settled in one house. We checked whether this is actually true.

The fact that all the residents of Whittier, Alaska, live under one roof is reported on several large public pages on VKontakte, for example "5 interesting facts", "Turns out…", "World of Discovery" etc. Users of other social networks, in particular, dedicate their posts to the unusual town Facebook And Twitter. Similar messages can be found on Life.ru, V National Geographic Russia, blogs on "Habré", "Culturology" And Pikabu, on portals Wday.ru And "Interesting Facts".

Whittier predictably attracted the attention of not only Russian-speaking social media users, but also the American media. Reports dedicated to this city were published, for example, on CNN and in The Smithsonian Magazine — their authors also talked about a city in Alaska, where “all the residents live in one building.” In May 2021 CBS News released video about life in Whittier, which talked about "most of the approximately 300 townspeople" who live in one house. Similar estimates leads and USA Today.

Fact checkers from the authoritative American project Snopes contacted with Whittier City Hall to find out what's really going on. According to a city administration spokesman, the city has about 300 residents, and 80% to 90% of them live in the 196-unit Begich Towers. The rest of the townspeople live in another apartment building. Probably means three-story building on Blackstone Road.

The house in which most of Whittier's residents now live was built in the 1950s to accommodate military personnel and engineers - during World War II, a logistics base for the American army was organized in this area. In 1974, the building was named Begich Towers in honor of Alaska Congressman Nick Begich - two years earlier he was flying on a plane that disappeared from radar, and the wreckage (as well as the passengers) could not be found. In the house, in addition to living quarters, There is a small shop, a notary's office, a post office and a church, and is connected to the local school by an underground tunnel.