Dillingham, Alaska

Unorganized Borough

02-18950

Dillingham is a city in Dillingham Census Area, Alaska. According to official estimates in 2008 there lived 2347 people.

Geography

Dillingham is located at the northern end of Nushagak Bay, an inlet of the Bristol Bay, at the confluence of the Wood River and the Nushagak River.

History

The area of Dillingham was inhabited by the people of the Yupik. The Russians built a trading post there in 1818. The area was named after the river Nushagak. In Nushagak different groups from the Kuskokwim River, Alaska Peninsula and Cook Inlet came to trade or to settle there. 1837 in a Russian Orthodox Nushagak mission was built.

After the purchase of Alaska by the United States, the United States Army Signal Corps built a weather station at Nushagak. In 1884, the first salmon cannery in the Bristol Bay east of present-day Dillingham was built. By 1900, ten more were built. The Post Office east of Nushagak at Snag Point and the city was named in 1904 after U.S. Senator Paul Dillingham, Alaska with his Senate subcommittee in 1903 traveled extensively.

1918 and 1919, the population shrank by a flu epidemic to 500 people. After the epidemic, a hospital and an orphanage in Kanakanak were built, 10 km south of Dillingham.

1963 Dillingham received city rights.

In 1974, the first regional radio station for the Bristol Bay region was built in Dillingham for educational purposes. With the call sign KDLG 670kHz, the station sends still education, entertainment and important safety information for the fishing fleet and the surrounding communities.

The main industries in and around Dillingham today are commercial fishing, sport fishing, tourism and canneries.

Traffic

Dillingham has a national airport with regular flights to and from Anchorage. A seaplane base is located 5 km west at Shannon 's Pond. The Kanakanak hospital has a heliport. The town has a small harbor with 320 berths. Since 1960 there is a gravel road to Aleknagik.