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
- Creek Street — the boardwalk on pilings, Dolly's House Museum, the salmon ladder, and Married Man's Trail over the hill.
- The totem circuit — Saxman Totem Park, Totem Bight State Park, Potlatch Totem Park, and the Totem Heritage Center's unrestored 19th-century poles.
- Misty Fjords National Monument — granite fjords, waterfalls, and New Eddystone Rock by floatplane or boat up Behm Canal.
- The Tongass — rainforest trails from Rainbird to the Deer Mountain climb; bears at Herring Cove in late summer; eagles everywhere.
- Town life — the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, waterfront seafood, Cape Fox Lodge above downtown, and the summer salmon derby.
