From an Italian racing yacht to the Earl of Sandwich: Origins of Alaska placenames and the tenuous ties of their namesakes to the state

Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

“Do more placename origins, and with some places outside Anchorage,” said a reader’s email. Understandable. We all want to know who some of the more well-known towns, islands, mountains, and other features are named after. We all want to see the care and concern that went into the process. And we want to know that the features in our state are named after people and things we collectively value. There are far too many name origins to include here, so this article is a quick trip around the state, taking in the sights and sharing some information along the way.

Beginning in Anchorage, what is now the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson began in 1940 as Elmendorf Field. It was officially named Fort Richardson that November. In 1947, the installation was handed over to the Air Force and became Elemendorf Air Force Base while the Army built a new Fort Richardson.

The Elmendorf in all that is for Hugh Elmendorf (1895-1933), an Army pilot who died testing a Consolidated Y1P-25 in Ohio. His name was placed on a list for new airfields. When Anchorage was selected, it was his turn. He never set foot in Alaska.

Campbell Elementary in Anchorage takes its name from the creek that was named for the point. Campbell Lake, built by damming the creek in 1958, came after the point but before the school. George Vancouver named Points MacKenzie and Campbell during his 1794 journey, likely for Scottish politician James Stuart Mackenzie and his wife, Elizabeth Campbell. Readers might be more familiar with Mackenzie as the brother of John Stuart, who was Prime Minister for about a year under King George III. Neither Mackenzie nor Campbell ever visited Alaska.

The most famously contentious placename in Alaska history is Denali, otherwise long officially burdened with the name of an Ohio politician and president who never set foot here. Yet many other Alaska mountains, particularly the tallest peaks, have similar origins.

Mount Saint Elias is the second tallest mountain in Alaska. The Danish captain Vitus Bering, in charge of a Russian expedition, sighted the peak in 1741 on the saint’s day for St. Elias, hence the name. Better known as Elijah, this saint was a 9th-century BC Jewish prophet revered by Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians. He is the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is some disagreement among the sources, the prevailing conclusion is that Bering named only Cape Saint Elias, with later cartographers naming the mountain from the cape. St. Elijah/Elias never set foot in Alaska.

Prince Luigi Amedeo de Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi, made the first ascent of Mount Saint Elias in 1897. The mountain itself is not among the more challenging climbs in the world, yet reaching the base is its own ordeal given the approach over vast fields of glaciers. From beginning to end, Amedeo spent 50 days on ice and rock, far from the comfort of trees and other vegetation. Though not Alaskan, he and his company experienced something of the duality of life here. The first plants they documented on their return were delicious blueberries. The first animals they encountered were mosquitoes, which surrounded and bit them such that their faces swelled.

From Mount Saint Elias, Amedeo could see Mount Bona, the fourth tallest mountain in Alaska. Before leaving for Alaska, the Duke ordered the construction of a kauri-wood racing yacht, the Bona. While mountaineering in Alaska, he often thought of his newest toy and named the mountain in its honor. By 1899, he had tired of the yacht and sold it that year while he pursued a polar expedition.

Mount Foraker, the third tallest mountain in Alaska, is named after another Ohio politician, Joseph Foraker (1846-1917). Mount Blackburn, the fifth highest peak in Alaska, is different in that it is named for a Kentucky politician, Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn (1838-1918). Army soldiers named both mountains during survey expeditions into Alaska. And neither namesake appears to have visited Alaska before their deaths.

The islands of Southeast Alaska offer their own range of name origins. Consider Prince of Wales Island, the second largest island in Alaska after Kodiak. George Vancouver — essentially — named the island in 1793 while passing by. There have been many Princes of Wales, but Vancouver was referencing George Augustus Frederick (1762-1830), also known by his nickname Prinny. His father was King George III, better known to those on this side of the Atlantic as Mad King George and the ruling king during the American Revolution.

Due to his father’s mental illness, this Prince of Wales served as regent from 1811 to 1820, before taking the throne as George IV. The Regency Era of English history takes its name from Prinny’s tenure as regent and is the setting for many popular romance novels, from “Pride and Prejudice” to “Bridgerton.” As prince, regent, or king, he never set foot in Alaska.

Only one Prince of Wales has ever visited Alaska, the current King Charles III, who spent a small part of an afternoon in Anchorage back in 1970. With so little time, he naturally visited Elderberry Park, which is lovely and recently renovated but still a confounding centerpiece for a royal visit.

Revillagigedo Island, home to Ketchikan and Saxman, is named for Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, second Count of Revillagigedo (1738-1799). He was also Viceroy of New Spain — Spain’s colonies in the Americas — from 1789 to 1794. Spanish explorer Jacinto Caamaño sighted the island in 1792 and named it after the politically powerful Count of Revillagigedo. Suemez Island, shown as “Guemes” on some early maps, is likely also named for the Count of Revillagigedo, who nonetheless never visited Alaska.

Gravina Island lies across the Tongass Narrows from Ketchikan and is home to the Ketchikan International Airport. Caamaño named the island after Federico Carlos Gravina y Nápoli (1756-1806), a Sicilian-born admiral for Spain. The admiral saw much of the world but not Alaska.

In 1879, naturalist and surveyor William Dall named Kosciusko Island after Polish national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746-1817), who also fought on the American side in the Revolutionary War. Dall himself is the namesake of Dall’s sheep and Dall’s porpoise among several other species. Kościuszko, however, never set foot in Alaska.

Captain James Cook named several islands around the Pacific Ocean after his patron, John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), including two notable ones in the Gulf of Alaska. Montague Island, spelling differences aside, is somewhat obvious. Hinchinbrook Island requires a bit more explanation. Hinchingbrooke House, in Huntingdon, England, was the Montagu family home for generations. The fourth Earl of Sandwich is also the namesake and supposed originator of the sandwich itself. Neither Montagu nor the family estate ever traveled to Alaska, though countless sandwiches have been consumed here.

A few Alaska towns have fascinating name origins. Francina Haines (1819-1886) chaired the Presbyterian home missions committee that funded a mission in Alaska that was renamed after her. When the town incorporated, they chose to keep the mission’s name. Still, she never visited Alaska. Bethel was similarly named after a Moravian mission established there in 1885, which was named after the Biblical Bethel with some inspiration from Genesis 35:1: “Arise, and go up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make an altar unto God.”

The Whittier Glacier is named after Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). Whittier the town came later and was named after the glacier. Whittier the man never visited Alaska though he might have enjoyed the experience. His poems sometimes touch on relevant topics like winter and fishing. From his “The Fishermen”:

Where in the mist the rock is hiding,

And the sharp reef lurks below,

And the white squall smites in summer,

And the autumn tempests blow;

Where, through gray and rolling vapor,

From evening unto morn,

A thousand boats are hailing,

Horn answering unto horn.

Finally, there is Fairbanks. While it lies within the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River, the town itself dates back to a trading post established by Elbridge Truman Barnette (1863-1933) in 1901. He was headed toward what is now Tanacross with 130 tons of goods when shallow water detoured his riverboat onto the Chena River. When the boat could go no farther, the captain dumped a furious Barnette off early. With no other good options, the trader set up shop in an ignominious log structure described by one new arrival as a “disreputable pig sty.”

In 1902, Judge James Wickersham convinced Barnette to name the trading post after Indiana Sen. Charles Warren Fairbanks, later vice president under Teddy Roosevelt. This Fairbanks had been Wickersham’s mentor. That same year, Italian miner Felice Pedroni (1858-1910), better known as Felix Pedro, struck gold a little to the north. The subsequent rush made the town with the Fairbanks name surviving the 1903 incorporation.

Wickersham sent Sen. Fairbanks a gold pan used by Pedro, allegedly the one from the gold discovery. Though the Hoosier never visited Alaska, he frequently exchanged letters and Christmas wishes with residents, including a full-page holiday greeting in a 1906 issue of the Fairbanks Evening News. Some Fairbanks residents cling to the mistaken belief that the town was named for the “fair banks” of the Chena River, even though that was never Barnette’s preferred destination.

In all, there are no uniform reasons or rules to the naming origins of Alaska placenames. Most of the places examined here have Indigenous names that were ignored. Prince of Wales Island is Taan in Tlingit, and Bethel is Mamterilleq in Yup’ik. Many other place names in Alaska are directly taken, if somewhat mangled form, from original Indigenous names, e.g., Ketchikan, Sitka, Talkeetna and Yukon. And, of course, one loud personality really wanted to name islands after a sandwich guy.

Key sources:

Cole, Dermot. “Don’t Forget About Charles Warren Fairbanks’ Birthday.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, May 10, 1994, B1.

Cole, Dermot. Historic Fairbanks: An Illustrated History. San Antonio: Historical Publishing Network, 2002.

“First ascent of Mount Saint Elias.” National Park Service, April 14, 2015.

Orth, Donald J. Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey, Professional Paper 567. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1971.

Tenderini, Mirella, and Michael Shandrick. The Duke of the Abruzzi: An Explorer’s Tale. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 1997.