The creek had a wilder era, too. From 1903 to 1954, Creek Street — the boardwalk on pilings over the water — was the town's red-light district, home to as many as thirty establishments; sportsmen joked it was the only place where both the fish and the fishermen went upstream to spawn. Dolly Arthur, its most famous madam, worked the green house at Number 24 from 1919 on, and her home survives as Dolly's House Museum. The discreet back path over the hill earned its own enduring name: Married Man's Trail.
Timber built the second economy. Sitka spruce from the surrounding Tongass — the largest national forest in the country, its regional headquarters right in town — fed sawmills and, in 1954, the big pulp mill at Ward Cove that anchored the town for four decades until its 1997 closing. Logging's showman legacy survives downtown, where the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show still runs axe throws and log-rolls for the summer crowds.
Why People Visit Ketchikan Alaska
Because it is the concentrated version of Southeast Alaska: a walkable historic waterfront where the totem poles are real, the salmon run through downtown, the rainforest starts at the last streetlight, and the fjords are a floatplane ride away. First port of call, and for many travelers the one they remember longest.
