Nushagak, Alaska
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Nushagak was a trade center and settlement near the present-day site of Dillingham, Alaska at the northern end of Nushagak Bay in northern Bristol Bay. It was located near the confluence of the Wood and Nushagak Rivers.
The area was inhabited by Yup'ik Eskimos and Athabaskans. In 1818 Russians built the post of Alexandrovski Redoubt (Post) there. A Russian Orthodox mission was established there in 1837, by which time the community was known as Nushagak. Nushagak became a place where different Alaska Native groups from the Kuskokwim River, the Alaska Peninsula and Cook Inlet came to trade or live..[1]
In 1881, after the Alaska Purchase by the United States, the United States Signal Corps built a weather station at Nushagak. The first salmon cannery in the Bristol Bay region was constructed by Arctic Packing Company in 1884 east of the site of modern-day Dillingham. Ten more salmon canneries were built by 1900. In 1904 the post office east of Nushagak at Snag Point and the town were named in after United States Senator Paul Dillingham, who had toured Alaska extensively with his Senate subcommittee during 1903.[1]
The world wide influenza pandemic of 1918 visited the area, and left no more than 500 survivors, leading to the depopulation of Nushagak. After the epidemic a hospital and orphanage were established in Kanakanak, 6 miles (10 km) from the present-day city center of Dillingham. The Dillingham townsite was first surveyed in 1947, and the City of Dillingham was incorporated in 1963.[1]
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