Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Palmer, AK

Palmer is a city and the borough seat of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, 42 miles northeast of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway in the Matanuska Valley, with 5,888 residents and 2,168 households in the 2020 census.

Palmer is the ninth-largest city in Alaska and forms part of the Anchorage metropolitan statistical area.

Palmer was named after George Palmer, a trader, and its post office opened on July 6, 1917 under the name of Warton.

Palmer was incorporated as a city on April 30, 1951.

In 1935 the federal government spent eleven million dollars to create the town of Palmer and relocate 203 families from the Iron Range region of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, each of which drew lots for a 40-acre tract, in the Matanuska Colony project.

Many of the structures built by the colony families are now in a nationally recognized historic district, and many of the families' descendants still live and farm in the Palmer area.

Palmer is most noted as the location of the annual Alaska State Fair, where contests for the largest vegetable are held and national and world records have been recorded, including a 79.1-pound cabbage that won first place in 2008.

Palmer is the headquarters of the National Tsunami Warning Center.

The Palmer Museum of History and Art and a log cabin Visitor Information Center entertain more than 35,000 visitors each year, and the center's public gardens showcase more than 600 locally grown plant varieties.

Pioneer Peak rises more than 6,000 feet just a few miles south of Palmer, and Hatcher Pass, a local favorite for hiking and skiing, is about 22 miles away in the Talkeetna Mountains.