Social and Economic History
The first European settlement on island was established in 1799 by Alexandr Baranov, Chief Manager and first Governor of the Russian-American Company, for whom the island and Archipelago are named. Baranov Island was the center of Russian activity in North America during the period from 1804–1867 and was the headquarters of the Russian fur-trading interest.
Around 1900, Baranof Island was subject to many small-scale mining ventures, especially centered around Sitka and on the north side of the island around Rodman Bay. Canneries, whaling stations, and fox farms were established on Baranof Island and smaller islands around it, though most had been abandoned by the beginning of World War II. The remains of these outposts are still evident, though most exist in a dilapidated condition.
In February 1924 the Alaska Territorial Game Commission hired Charlie Raatakainen to transplant mainland goats from near Juneau to Bear Mountain. Raatakainen hired a group of Finns aboard his boat the Pelican to complete the job, though one of the group died in the process.
The 1939 Slattery Report on Alaskan development identified the island as one of the areas where new settlements would be established through immigration. This plan was never implemented.
Read more about this topic: Baranof Island
Famous quotes containing the words social and, social, economic and/or history:
“Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self- employment and artistic autonomy.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“... feminism is the attempt of women to grow up, to accept the responsibilities of life, to outgrow those characteristics of childhood—selfishness and unworldliness—that we require our boys to outgrow, but that we permit and by our social system encourage our girls to retain.”
—Henrietta Rodman (1878–?)
“Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far- reaching in purpose.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)