Editing Ketchikan, Alaska (section)

==History==
[[File:Alaska - Ketchikan - NARA - 23939789.jpg|thumb|right|View of Ketchikan in the 1940s]]
Ketchikan Creek served as a summer fish camp for [[Tlingit|Tlingit natives]] for untold years before the town was established by Mike Martin in 1885. He was sent to the area by an Oregon canning company to assess prospects. He established the saltery Clark & Martin and a general store with [[Nova Scotia]] native George Clark, who had been foreman at a cannery that burned down.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/TongassPacking/040707_tongass_packing.html|title = SitNews – Ketchikan took shape 120 years ago|author= Dave Kiffer}}</ref>

Ketchikan became known as "Alaska's first city" due to its strategic position at the southern tip of the [[Inside Passage]], connecting the [[Gulf of Alaska]] to [[Puget Sound]].

In 1905 a mission house was built, which in 1909 became the Yates Memorial Hospital. In 2020, the [[National Trust for Historic Preservation]] named the former hospital as one of America's most endangered historic places.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brandon |first1=Elissaveta M. |title=Eleven historic places in America that desperately need saving |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/these-11-historic-places-in-america-desperately-need-saving-180975924/ |website=Smithsonian |access-date=October 20, 2020}}</ref>