(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Nome Alaska is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast of Norton Sound in the Nome Census Area of Alaska. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city population was 3,590.

History
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. News reached the gold fields of the Klondike that winter. By 1899 Nome had a population of 10,000. It was not until gold was discovered in the beach sands in 1899 that news about the gold reached the lower United States. Thousands of people poured into Nome during the spring of 1900 aboard steamships from the ports of Seattle and San Francisco. By 1900, a tent city on the beaches and on the treeless coast reached 48 km (30 miles), from Cape Rodney to Cape Nome.

During the period from 1900 – 1909 estimates of Nome's population reached as high as 20,000. The highest recorded population of Nome, in the 1900 United States census, was 12,488. At this time, Nome was the largest city in the Alaska Territory. Early in this period the U.S. Army policed the area, and expelled any inhabitant each autumn who did not have shelter (or the resources to pay for shelter) for the harsh winter.

The name "Nome" may come from a point of land located twelve miles (19 km) from the city; it is also possible that the town was named after Nome, Norway. Cape Nome had received its name from a copying error, when a British mapmaker copied an annotation from a map made by a British officer had made on a voyage up the Bering Strait. The officer had written "? Name" next to the unnamed cape. The mapmaker misread the annotation as "C. Nome", or Cape Nome, and used that name on his map.

In February 1899, a group of men who had property and mining claims on the near present-day Nome agreed to change the name of the new mining camp from Nome to Anvil City, because of the confusion with Cape Nome, and Nome Creek, four miles (6 km) from Nome. The United States Post Office in Nome refused to change its name to Anvil City and the residents of Anvil City were afraid that the post office would move to Nome City, a mining camp on the Nome River. They voted and unhappily agreed to change the name of Anvil City back to Nome.

Many late-comers were jealous of the original discoverers, and tried to “jump” the original claims by filing mining claims covering the same ground. The federal judge for the area ruled the original claims valid, but some of the claim jumpers agreed to share their invalid claims with influential Washington politicians. Alexander McKenzie, a Republican party higher-up from North Dakota, took a partial interest in the jumper mining claims, secured the appointment of his obedient crony Arthur Noyes as the federal judge for the Nome region, and the two went together to Alaska to steal the richest gold mines in Nome. The bald-faced theft using the federal judiciary was eventually stopped, but provided the plot for Rex Beach’s best-selling novel The Spoilers, which was made into a stage play, then five times into movies, including one version starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich.

Fires in 1905 and 1934 and violent storms in 1900, 1913, 1945 and 1974 destroyed much of Nome's gold rush architecture. The pre-fire "Discovery Saloon" is now a private residence and is being slowly restored as a landmark.

In the winter of 1925, a diphtheria epidemic among Eskimos in Nome was halted when, during fierce blizzard conditions, a dog sled team arrived with serum. The sled driver of the final leg of the relay was Gunnar Kaasen and the lead sled dog was Balto. A statue of Balto by F.G. Roth stands near the zoo in Central Park, New York City.

During World War II, Nome was the last stop on the ferry system for planes flying from the United States to the Soviet Union for the Lend-lease program. The airstrip currently in use was built and troops were stationed there. One "Birchwood" hangar remains and has been transferred to a local group with hopes to restore it. It is not located on the former Marks AFB (now the primary Nome Airport); rather it is a remnant of an auxiliary landing field a mile or so away: "Satellite Field". In the hills north of the city, there were auxiliary facilites associated with the Distant Early Warning system that are visible from the city but are no longer in use.

In 1973, Nome became the ending point of the 1,049+ mi (1,600+ km) Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race held in honor of the 1925 diphtheria serum run.