McCarthy (Alaska)

Unorganized Borough

02-45790

McCarthy is a place in the Valdez - Cordova Census Area, Alaska, at the foot of the Wrangell Mountains in Wrangell-St Elias National Park, 193 km north-east of Cordova. The McCarthy Road connects the village to Chitina on the Copper River.

History

Athabaskan Indians had the area around the later McCarthy used over centuries for fishing, but never built a settlement.

As 1900 was discovered copper nearby McCarthy and founded by the Kennecott Mining Company, the mining town of Kennicott, were banned in the Alcoholic and prostitution, McCarthy quickly grew into a town with hospital, school, bars and brothels. The population rose to 800. 1911 reached the Copper River and Northwestern Railway McCarthy, with which the ore was transported from Kennicott.

In 1938, the copper mines were exhausted and the promotion and the train were set, McCarthy was slowly ghost town. Until the 1970s, when the region was opened up to tourists to Kennicott, people settled again in the city.