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Within City
Limits:
1999 – 3,615
· 52% Alaska Native · 48% Non-Native
Seward
Peninsula: 1999 – 8,288
GENERAL
12 churches, 2
libraries, 1 museum, 1 bank, 1 credit union,
convention center, indoor swimming pool, 1
veterinarian hospital.
MEDICAL
FACILITIES
19 bed - 8
physician hospital, 15 bed elder's long-term care
facility, 1 outpatient clinic, 2 dental clinics,
1 eye clinic, 1 pharmacy, 1 chiropractor, 1
private practice.
History
of Nome, AK
"The
"Three Lucky Swedes, " Jafet Lindberg,
Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson, discovered gold
on Anvil Creek in 1898. News reached the gold
fields of the Klondike that winter and by 1899
Anvil City, as the new camp was called, had a
population of 10,000. It was not until gold was
discovered in the beach sands in 1899 and news
reached the outside that the real stampede was on.
Thousands poured into Nome during the spring of
1900, as soon as steamships from the ports of
Seattle and San Francisco could reach the north
through the ice.
In the
treeless location, tents soon covered the
landscape, reaching the water's edge, and
extending most of the 30 miles between Cape
Rodney and Cape Nome. Buildings of finished board
lumber began going up as early as 1899, as soon
as ships reached Nome from the states with
supplies.
The gold
camp's "Hey Day" was the first decade
of this century. Once the largest city in Alaska,
estimates of it's population reached as high as
20,000 but the highest recorded population in
1900 was 12,488. The U.S. Census of 1900 listed
one-third of all whites recorded in Alaska as
living in Nome.
Due to fires
(1905 & 1934) and violent storms (1900, 1913,
1945 & 1974), very little of Nome's gold rush
architecture remains. Although most of the
remaining examples are not grand, they have a
touch of the Victorian detail popular during the
gold rush period. Two major events altered the
physical appearance of present-day Nome to a
great degree. The fire of 1934 completely
destroyed the business section on Front Street
and portions of residential area surrounding it,
changing the character of the commercial district.
The other event was World War II. Nome was the
last stop on the ferry system for planes flying
to the U.S.S.R. for the Lend/Lease program. The
airstrip in current use was built and troops were
stationed here. Signs of military presence
include the numerous Quonset huts and knock-down
buildings (usually long narrow buildings put
together from five foot sections).
Today, air
travel has replaced the steam ship as the chief
mode of travel to Nome, and residents make their
living from means other than the gold pan and
rocker. The legacy from the gold rush remains.
That legacy is only a small part of the
contemporary community, adding to the flow of
people and events from the past 96 years of
Nome's history.
The Naming
of Nome: In February 1899, a group of 42 men who
had staked property and mining claims on the
Snake River near Nome City, officially agreed to
change the name of the new mining camp to Anvil
City, because of the confusion with the Nome
River, which was located four miles to the
southeast, and with Cape Nome, the point of land
located twelve miles from the city.
The name
change only made the situation even more
confusing. The town was locally known as Anvil
City for much of 1899, but the United States Post
Office Department insisted on calling the
community "Nome," apparently because it
was thought that a town called Anvil City would
be easily confused with the village of Anvik on
the lower Yukon. A competing town site had been
established at the mouth of the Nome River and it
was also called Nome City. The Anvil City
merchants feared that the Post Office might
decide to move the "Nome" Post Office
from Anvil City on the Snake River to Nome City
on the Nome River. After a vote was held the
merchants reluctantly agreed to change the name
of Anvil City back to Nome.
Against it's
wishes the city was stuck with the unusual name
of Nome. Unlike other towns which are named for
explorers, heros or politicians, Nome was named
as a result of a 50 year-old spelling error. In
the 1850's an officer on a British ship off the
coast of Alaska noted on a manuscript map that a
nearby prominent point was not identified. He
wrote "? Name" next to the point. When
the map was recopied, another draftsman thought
that the ? was a C and that the a in "Name"
was an o, and thus a map-maker in the British
Admiralty christened 'Cape Nome.'"
From: Nome, Alaska
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. . . "Alaska's oldest continuous first class
city " 
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