This Day in History

In Alaska, in the Nation and the World

In Alaska

• In 1784, the first Russian colony in Alaska was established on Kodiak Island.

• In 1870, the first lease of the Pribilof Islands was signed by the Alaska Commercial Company and the U.S. Treasury Department.

• In 1879, Alaska's first Presbyterian Church was dedicated in Wrangell.

• In 1908, the first automobile in Fairbanks arrived, a Pope-Toledo, for David Laite.

• In 1959, the last stragglers of the second group of Michigan 59'ers homesteaders arrived in Willow, undecided as to whether to join the Detroit 59'ers in the Susitna Valley near Talkeetna, or to find another settlement.