History & culture in Kupreanof

Kupreanof in brief

1. Homesteaders settled this shore around the turn of the 20th century, when it was known as West Petersburg; the first business was a small sawmill the Knudsen brothers started in 1911, making barrels for the salted fish shipped out of Petersburg. (maps.commerce.alaska.gov · checked Oct 16, 2026)
2. The Yukon Fur Farm began raising foxes in the early 1920s and soon switched to mink, becoming the first mink farm in Alaska; in that decade more than 100 people lived in West Petersburg with a small store, a gaff-hook factory and several mink ranches. (maps.commerce.alaska.gov · checked Oct 16, 2026)
3. Through the 1930s and 40s the settlement supported a ship-repair yard, an outboard motor shop, commercial logging, a clam cannery and a barrel-maker; the Knudsen mill and fur farm lasted into the 1960s, but population fell from 60 in 1950 to 26 in 1960. (maps.commerce.alaska.gov · checked Oct 16, 2026)
4. West Petersburg took the name Kupreanof, after its island, when it incorporated as a second-class city in 1975, and it remained a separate municipality when the Petersburg Borough later formed around it. (cityofkupreanof.org · checked Oct 16, 2026)
5. The state community database describes present-day Kupreanof as a small, close-knit non-Native community whose waterfront homes are connected by boardwalk, with most working residents self-employed or commuting by boat to Petersburg, and subsistence use of deer, salmon, halibut, shrimp and crab. (maps.commerce.alaska.gov · checked Oct 16, 2026)