TELLER

A short history of Teller

The Inupiat had a fishing camp called Nuuk 32 km (20 mi) south of Teller in the early 19th century. The 1825-28 Beechey expedition found three camps with a total of some 400 inhabitants and a winter camp site with burial grounds in a roughly 10-mile (16 km) radius around the later site of Teller on September 1, 1827.

An expedition from the Western Union telegraph spent the winter at the present site of Teller in 1866 and 1867; they called it Libbyville or Libby Station. When the United States Government introduced reindeer herding in Alaska, the Teller Reindeer Station operated from 1892 to 1900 at a nearby site. A group of experienced Sami reindeer herders and families were brought in to train the Inupiat. The station was named for United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior Henry Moore Teller in 1892 by Sheldon Jackson.

Teller was established in 1900 after the Bluestone Placer Mine discovery 25 km (16 mi) to the south. It took its name from the reindeer herding station. During the boom years in the early 20th century, Teller had a population of about 5,000 and was a major regional trading center. Natives from Diomede, Wales, Mary's Igloo, and King Island came to trade there.

The Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church built Teller Mission across the harbor from Teller in 1900. The mission was renamed Brevig Mission in 1903, after the Reverend T.L. Brevig, who also served briefly as Teller's first postmaster, a post to which he was appointed April 2, 1900.

The dirigible Norge detoured to Teller on its first flight over the North Pole from Norway to Nome in 1926. Many present residents of Teller came from Mary's Igloo. Mary's Igloo is now a summer fishing camp and has no permanent residents.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Teller, Alaska, revision 1374944799 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.