Ketchikan History

Native Peoples of Ketchikan

Native Alaskan peoples, including the Tongass and Cape Fox Tlingits, historically used Ketchikan Creek as a fish camp that they called kitschk-hin; the word may mean "the river belonging to Kitschk;" other accounts claim it means "Thundering Wings of an Eagle."

The Purchase of Alaska

In the late 1850s, Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian Alaska without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British, against whom they had fought a decade earlier in the Crimean War. While Alaska attracted little interest at the time, the population of nearby British Columbia began to increase rapidly in the late 1850s.

The Russians feared that in any future conflict with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might become a prime target, and would be easily captured. This Great Powers calculus led Tsar Alexander II to sell the territory. Perhaps in hopes of starting a bidding war, both the British and the Americans were approached. The British, however, expressed little interest in buying Alaska. The Russians then turned their attention to the United States.

Two years after the end of the Civil War, Secretary of State William H. Seward began negotiations with the Russians, and came to an agreement to purchase the Alaskan territory on March 30, 1867 for $7.2 million. While most public opinion was in favor of the purchase, several newspapers editorialized against the extravagant sums paid for the territory. They derided it as "Seward's Folly," "Seward's Icebox," and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden."

The United States Senate ratified the treaty on April 9, 1867, by a vote of 37-2. However, the appropriation of money needed to purchase Alaska was delayed by more than a year due to opposition in the House of Representatives. The House finally approved the appropriation in July 1868, by a vote of 113-48.

William H. Seward

The Founding of the City of Ketchikan

In 1880, during the country's 10th census, Census Special Agent Ivan Petroff recorded 100 natives living in Cape Fox Village, which is located nearby today's town of Ketchikan.

The area's first business was a saltery built in 1883 by a man named Snow.

In 1885, several businessmen from Portland, Oregon, hired Mike Martin to investigate possibilities for building a salmon cannery on the banks of Ketchikan Creek. Martin bought 160 acres from Chief Kyan, which later became the township. A year later, Martin and his partner George Clark built a salmon cannery near the mouth of Ketchikan Creek. The cannery burned down in 1888, and thereafter Martin and Clark established a salmon saltery--used for salting and preserving fish--and a general store in what is today the town of Ketchikan. A post office was established in 1892.

The late 1890s witnessed the Yukon Gold Rush. During that period, there was extensive prospecting in the Ketchikan area for gold and copper, and the small town enjoyed a boom. Ketchikan became a center of commerce, supplying equipment to the miners. It is estimated that two-thirds of the wages earned by the miners was spent in the bars and bordellos of Creek Street.

Mike Martin

Ketchikan in the 20th Century

Ketchikan was officially incorporated in 1900; at the time, the population stood at 1,000 residents. Yet the mining boom was short lived, and the town's economy looked to fishing and logging as its economic engines. The need for lumber for home construction and packing boxes led to the creation of the Ketchikan Spruce Mills, which was established in 1903. By 1912, four additional salmon canneries were built.

In 1907/8, Theodore Roosevelt established the Tongass National Forest (the nation's largest national forest, comprising 17 million acres) in the area abutting Ketchikan.

In the intervening years, the population of the town grew to 2,500 in 1920, and to 3,800 in 1930. By 1936, Ketchikan's seven salmon canneries produced 1.5 million cases of salmon. It was during this period that Ketchikan gained its title of "Salmon Capital of the World."

World War II was an important time for Ketchikan, as the Ketchikan Spruce Mills produced vast quantities of lumber for the war effort. Later, in 1954, a $55 million pulp mill was constructed by the Ketchikan Pulp Company at Ward Cove, situated near Ketchikan. This mill fueled growth in the Ketchikan economy.

The Ketchikan airport was built in 1969 on Gravina Island, directly across the Ketchikan Creek from Ketchikan. However, passengers must take a seven-minute ferry ride across the water to get to the airport from the town. In the early years of the 21st century, a bridge from Gravina Island to Ketchikan, often referred to as the "bridge to nowhere," was proposed by the Alaskan state delegation to Congress. The price tag of the bridge was an estimated $398 million. After protracted attention to the high cost of the bridge, the Federal government changed its original decision to fund the bridge in 2007.

The Ketchikan Spruce Mills Company shuttered its operations in the early 1970s. In 1994, the Ketchikan Pulp Company's 50-year timber contract with the U.S. Forest Service was cancelled, and the company ceased operations in 1997.

At the turn of the century, Ketchikan had a population of 7,900 people, making it the fifth largest town in Alaska

Today's Ketchikan

Into the 21st century, Ketchikan still looks to fishing and seafood processing as important parts of its economy. However, the seasonal tourism industry has far surpassed these resource-based industries. Every year, cruise ships bring in over 1 million visitors to the small town.

Tourists come to discover the people and heritage of Ketchikan, the abundant recreational opportunities of the area, the wonder of the Tongass National Forest and the beauty of the Misty Fjords National Monument, created by president Jimmy Carter in 1978. Misty Fjords is often called "the Yosemite of the North."