|
Anchorage |
Anchorage was laid out by city planners in 1914,
originally as a railroad construction port for the Alaska Railroad, which was
built between 1915 and 1923. Ship Creek Landing, where the railroad headquarters
was located, quickly became a tent city; Anchorage was incorporated on November
23, 1920. |
|
Barrow |
Before it was Barrow, Barrow was known as Ukpiagvik.
The name means "place where owls are hunted" in Inupiaq. Archaeological sites in
the area indicate the Inupiat lived around Barrow as far back as 500. Some
remains of 16 dwelling mounds from the Birnirk culture of about 800 are still in
evidence today. |
|
Bethel |
Bethel, at its original location, was a Yup'ik
village called Mamterillermiut, meaning "Smokehouse People," after the nearby
fish smokehouse. It was an Alaska Commercial Company trading post during the
late 1800s. It had a population of 41 people in the 1880 U.S. Census. |
|
Cordova |
The area around Cordova was historically home to
the Alutiiq, with a population of Eyak to the east, and occasional visits from
Ahtna and Tlingit people for trade or battle. Orca Inlet was named "Puerto
Córdova", after the city of Cordoba, Spain, by Don Salvador Fidalgo in 1790. |
|
Dillingham |
The area around Dillingham was inhabited by both
Yupik and Athabaskans. It became a trade center when Russians built
Alexandrovski Redoubt (Post) there in 1818. The area was called Nushagak, after
the Nushagak River. |
|
Fairbanks |
Before Fairbanks was founded, Koyukon Athabaskans
lived, fished, and hunted along the shores of the Tanana River for thousands of
years. The Tanana and other rivers also served as trade routes with other
Athabaskans and Inuit. |
|
Haines |
The area around present-day Haines was called "'Dtehshuh"
or "end of the trail" by the Chilkat group of Tlingit. It received this name
because they could portage (carry) their canoes from the trail they used to
trade with the interior, which began at the outlet of the Chilkat River. |
|
Homer |
Archeological digs indicate that early Alutiq
people probably camped in the Homer area although their villages were on the far
side of Kachemak Bay. Homer was named for Homer Pennock, a gold mining company
promoter, who arrived in 1896 on what is now the Homer Spit. |
|
Juneau |
Long before European settlement in the Americas,
the Gastineau Channel was a favorite fishing ground for local Tlingit Indians,
known then as the Auke and Taku tribes, who had inhabited the surrounding area
for thousands of years. |
|
Kenai |
Kenai is named after the Kenai Peninsula. The name
Kenai is probably derived from Kenayskaya, the Russian name for the Cook Inlet
and translates to "flat, barren land". Or, it could refer to the Inuit word
kenai (black bear). |
|
Ketchikan |
Ketchikan is named after Ketchikan Creek, which
flows through the town. Ketchikan comes from the Tlingit name for the creek,
Kitschk-hin, the meaning of which is unclear, it may mean "the river belonging
to Kitschk." Other accounts claim it means "Thundering Wings of an Eagle." |
|
Kodiak |
The lifestyles of many Kodiak residents still
include subsistence food gathering. Fishing (particularly for salmon and
halibut), hunting (for black-tailed deer, elk, and goats), and berry-picking
(salmonberry, blueberry, and high- and low-bush cranberry) are common summer and
fall activities. |
|
Kotzebue |
There is archaeological evidence that Inupiat
people have lived at Kotzebue since at least the 1400s. Because of its location,
Kotzebue was a trading and gathering center for the entire area. The Noatak,
Selawik and Kobuk Rivers drain into the Kotzebue Sound near Kotzebue. |
|
Nome |
The west coast of Alaska was hunted by Inupiat from
prehistoric times. However, there was no permanent settlement there until 1898,
when a Norwegian, Jafet Lindeberg, and two Swedes, Erik Lindblom and John
Brynteson, discovered gold on Anvil Creek. |
|
Palmer |
Palmer began in 1916 as a railway station on the
Matanuska branch of the Alaska Railroad. In 1935, during the Great Depression,
the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, one of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal projects, established the Matanuska Colony. |
|
Petersburg |
The north end of Mitkof Island was a summer fish
camp utilized by Kake Tlingits from Kupreanof Island. Some began living
year-round at the site. Petersburg was named after Peter Buschmann, a Norwegian
immigrant who arrived in the late 1890s and homesteaded on the north end of the
island. |
|
Seldovia |
Seldovia Alaska was founded by Russian fur traders
in the early 1800s as Seldevoy or "Herring Bay". This name was given
in recognition of the significant herring population in the bay prior to rampant
over fishing in the early 20th century. |
|
Seward |
Seward is unique among most small
Alaskan communities in that it has road access in the Seward Highway, a National
Scenic Byway and All-American Road, which also brings it bus service. Seward is
also the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad. |
|
Sitka |
Old Sitka was founded in 1799 by
Alexandr Baranov, the governor of Russian America. Baranov arrived under the
auspices of the Russian-American Company, a "semi-official" colonial trading
company chartered by Tsar Paul I. |
|
Soldotna |
There are three explanations of
the origin of the word Soldotna: one, that it is derived from soldat, the
Russian word for soldier; two, that it is derived from an Athabaskan word for
"stream fork" and three, that it is derived from Tseldatna, the Athabaskan name
of an herb. |
|
Unalaska (Dutch Harbor) |
The Aleut or Unangan have lived
on Unalaska Island for thousands of years. The Russian fur trade reached
Unalaska when Stepan Glotov and his crew arrived on August 1, 1759. The name
"Unalaska" is likely an Americanization of the Russian name "Ounalashka". |
|
Valdez |
The port of Valdez was named in
1790 by the Spanish explorer Don Salvador Fidalgo after the Spanish naval
officer Antonio Valdés y Basán. Because the Port of Valdez was an ice-free port,
a town developed there in 1898. |
|
Wasilla |
The history of Wasilla begins
with the history of Knik, the first boom town in the Mat-Su Valley, which by
1915 boasted a population of 500. The town served the early fur trappers and
miners working the gold fields at Cache Creek and Willow Creek. |
|
Wrangell |
Wrangell is one of the oldest
non-Native settlements in Alaska. In 1811, the Russians began fur trading with
area Tlingit at the site of present-day Wrangell. In 1834, Baron Ferdinand
Petrovich Wrangel, then head of Russian government interests in Russian America,
ordered a stockade built. |
