Sitka: The First capital of Alaska

Most Americans who first came to Alaska came to Sitka. American frontier towns of the nineteenth century were usually small and served as supply points for outlying farms, ranches, and mines. Some prophets had grand visions for Alaska as "the New England of the Pacific" due to its favorable geographic position for trade with Asia. Most Americans who went to Alaska anticipated Sitka's development as a typical American frontier town. They saw a community that would thrive from commerce and mining and its role as Alaska's capital city.

Sitka did thrive for a short time after the purchase. The Russian-American Company needed to sell most of its goods and equipment. A dozen firms competed to empty Sitka's warehouses of the Russian-American Company property. Ship after ship sailed for San Francisco laden with cargo. A typical one carried 22,000 yards of cloth, 1,576 pairs of trousers, 2,522 sheepskin coats, 115 tea kettles, 117 copper kettles, 55 iron pots, 965 pounds of isinglass, 506 pounds of acid, and 764 pounds of copper wire. Other goods sent from Sitka to San Francisco included tons of sheet copper, barrels of copper spikes, sheet lead, iron in various forms, 696 old whipsaws, brass cannons, tools, grindstones, liquor, and exotic items such as pomade, leather-bound books, and silks.  

Between October 1867 and August 1869, 71 ships arrived at Sitka from San Francisco and other Pacific ports to carry off the Russian-American Company's stores and equipment. It took over a year to empty Sitka of Russian goods. During those months, jobs were plentiful. Sitka merchants are estimated to have done about $70,000 in business during the initial economic boom.  Shipping, with its accompanying employment of ships' officers, crews, and dockside workers, was an early boom industry. In July of 1868, the Sitka harbor was home to four steamships and ten sailing vessels with an aggregate of 2,220 tons.

Trading with the relatively large Tlingit population and fishing were the other economic activities in Sitka. In 1868, Sitka merchants traded about $50,000 worth of goods with their Tlingit neighbors. A red salmon saltery outside Sitka employed 12 seasonal workers and produced between 1,000 and 1,500 barrels of salted salmon and halibut each year.

In 1870, Sitka had several stores, butcher shops, a barber shop, a bakery, a sawmill, two breweries, and several saloons. A visitor to Sitka in 1868 reported about 50 American settlers, 250 American soldiers, and 800 Creoles and Russians. A stockade separated the Native and non-Native settlements. Relations between the two were tense at times. The Sitka Natives were not allowed into the American settlement after nightfall. Army sentries constantly guarded the stockade, and a battery of cannon was kept pointed toward the Indian village. 

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