A HISTORY OF FISH FINS, EAGLE WINGS AND PLUCKY IRISHMEN

Alaska Natives made summer camp at the creek for innumerable years, harvesting abundant salmon runs. The Tlingit (KLING-gut) Indian tribe gave a name to the creek: Kich-xaan (keesh-CON), usually translated as “thundering wings of the eagle.” In the mid-1880s, Oregon fish-processing interests sent plucky Irishman Mike Martin north to scout for likely salmon cannery sites. According to legend, Martin “bought” the creek mouth from a local Indian. (See our Attractions page for more on Native culture along the creek.) Martin and a partner built a saltery and cannery. Pioneers followed these early seafood entrepreneurs, drawn to riches of fish, timber and minerals. In 1900, more than 100 land-owning male residents incorporated the City of Ketchikan. Martin was the first mayor. Before long, a deepwater port welcomed steamships filled with adventurers, settlers and the stuff that towns are made of.

A modern-day 'replica' of a Creek Street madam at Dolly's House

The so-called First City on the sea route from Seattle to Alaska, Ketchikan grew fast. Fishing fleets crowded the harbor. Loggers and millwrights worked lush timber stands. Supply and service businesses flourished. Stability brought families. Their frame homes climbed Ketchikan’s hills. Early churches ministered to the faithful. Citizens organized a volunteer fire department and hired police.

And so came major turning points for Creek Street. One of the town’s service sectors was its brothels: scattered small houses catered to fishermen, loggers and miners. The City Council in 1903 decreed that ladies of the evening must move to the other side of the creek.

Also in that decade, city leaders relocated to the area south of Bawden Street the downtown businesses owned by Asian immigrants. Bawden Street was already a dividing line between the white town and Indian Town. Creek Street and adjacent Stedman Street became a marvelous stewpot of white settlers, Alaska Natives and immigrants from Japan, the Philippines and China.

The national pastime enjoyed a slurpy foothold at the mouth of the creek in early Ketchikan. The broad, silty tide flat provided a field for ‘tween-tides baseball games until about 1930, when the area was dredged to create Thomas Basin boat harbor for fast-growing commercial and recreational fleets.

CREEK STREET: WHAT HAPPENS HERE, STAYS HERE.

Local law limited brothels to two working girls. A number of such houses hugged Creek Street, alongside conventional residences and small shops. Some wit dubbed Creek Street “the only place where men and fish go upstream to spawn.” When Ketchikan passed a so-called Bone-Dry Law in 1917, Creek Street was perfectly situated to defy the ban on liquor. The neighborhood welcomed those who wanted to stray.

Ketchikan prizes its juicy history of rowboats making nighttime deliveries of factory liquor and moonshine through trap doors into Creek Street cat houses. Married Men’s Trail, descending from Venetia Lode above Creek Street (see Attractions page), gave brothel patrons a furtive path to pleasure. Dolly’s House Museum on lower Creek Street (see Attractions page) preserves some of that time; it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

Baseball on the creek's tidal flat

BRING THE FAMILY. IT’S SAFE NOW.

The city outlawed prostitution in 1953, opening Creek Street’s third era. Now more than a century old, the boardwalk street is a path to history and a great place to see old and refurbished architecture while peeling your eyes for wildlife such as salmon, seals, otters and eagles (see Wildlife page). Sit down for a meal. Shop for gifts. Look at the fish ladder. Take a dozen pictures. There’s no place like this place.