Kenai (Alaska)

The city received its name from the Russian name of the Gulf of Cook - Kenai Bay. The Russian colonists called Kenai Bay because of the Kenai tribe that lived there (as the Russians called the Tanaine tribe, borrowing the name “throwing” from the language of the Autiki ). ^[2]

Archaeological excavations have shown that the first people in the area of ​​the location of the city appeared about 1000 years BC.

Before the arrival of the Russian colonists, an Indian village was located on the site of the city, the first Russian merchants who arrived in 1741 counted about 1,000 inhabitants. In 1791, the Russian colonists founded the St. Nicholas Fort in the center of the village in order to trade in fish and furs. Thus, Kenai became the second permanent Russian settlement in Alaska.

In 1797 there was an armed conflict between the settlers and the indigenous population, which led to the death of about a hundred people on both sides. In 1838, smallpox killed about half of the villagers.

In 1888, prospector Alexander King found gold deposits on the Kenai Peninsula, but its amount was less than in the later discovered Klondike , Nome and Fairbanks , and did not lead to a fever .

In 1894, the Russian wooden Holy Assumption Church , also known as the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was built in Kenai, the temple is still functioning.

The creation of shipping companies in the 1900s led to the expansion of the small town to the port city. Until the 1920s, there was a sharp increase in commercial fishing in the city. In 1937, construction of Kenai Airport began.

• City Administration website