| Summary: | On verso of image: Fort Yukon on the Yukon River Filed in Alaska--Cities--Fort Yukon Alexander Hunter Murray founded a Hudson's Bay Co. trading post near the present site of Fort Yukon in 1847 as a Canadian outpost in Russian Territory. It became an important trade center for Gwich'in Indians of the Yukon Flats and River valleys. From 1846 through 1869, the Hudson Bay Co., a British trading firm, operated a trading post near the present site of Fort Yukon. A mission school was established in 1862. In 1869, two years after the purchase of Alaska from Russia, it was determined that Fort Yukon was on American soil. The Alaska Commercial Co. then took over operation of the Fort Yukon Trading Post. In 1897, the gold rush boosted both river traffic and the white population of Fort Yukon, while disease lowered the population of Gwich'in Athabascans. By 1898, a post office was established. The area became a major Yukon settlement, buoyed by the fur trade, the whaling boom on the Arctic coast and the Klondike gold rush, and provided some economic opportunity for area Natives. But epidemics of diseases introduced by incoming whites plagued Fort Yukon Indians from the 1860s through the 1920s. The community also became headquarters for hospital and pioneer missionary Hudson Stuck, who is buried here. In the 1950s, a White Alice radar site and an Air Force station were established. Fort Yukon was incorporated as a city in 1959. [Source: http://www.inalaska.com/d/fortyukon/history.html]
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