Katalla (pronounced ''KA-tell-ah'', sometimes spelled Catalla) is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, southeast of Cordova. The name of this town was sometimes spelled Catalla. It is now abandoned.

Geography

Katalla is located within the

Chugach National Forest The Chugach National Forest is a United States National Forest in south central Alaska. Covering portions of Prince William Sound, the Kenai Peninsula and the Copper River (Alaska), Copper River Delta, it was formed in 1907 from part of a larger ...

near Controller Bay and the Bering River.

History

Katalla was at the center of the now-abandoned Katalla

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the prese ...

. This was the first discovery of commercial quantities of oil in Alaska (1902). The town reportedly had a population of 5,000 in 1907-1908. This was the result of the announcement that the

Copper River and Northwestern Railway The Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CR&NW) consisted of two rail lines, the Copper River line and the Northwestern line. Michael James Heney had secured the right-of-way up the Copper River in 1904. He started building the railway from ...

(CR&NW) was going to use the town's location as its access to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

and the Bering River coal fields. Violent storms in the fall of 1907 destroyed the jetty being built and it was decided to move the railroad's terminus to nearby Cordova. The famous "ship of gold" ''SS Portland'', ran aground and sank at Katalla in November 1910, during one of these autumn storms. The town's population continued to depend on the small oil field for income until December 25, 1933, when fire damaged its refinery and operations ceased. The town's post office closed in 1943 and the town site was abandoned. The oil and gas extraction rights for the Katalla area were granted to the

Chugach Alaska Corporation Chugach Alaska Corporation, or CAC, is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Chugach Alaska Corporation was incorporated ...

by the

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law by U.S. President, President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971, constituting what is still the largest land claims settlement in United States history. ANCSA was intended to reso ...

. Before that, however, at least some of the rights to the field were owned by the California-Mexican-Alaska Holding Company, which dissolved and sold its assets to the Alaska Coal, Oil & By-Products Company in 1929. A Korean coal mining consortium resurrected potential interest in Katalla after they did coal exploration in the Bering River coal fields in the early 1980s. Interest waned as the coal reserves did not appear economically viable, and a haul route to Katalla would by necessity have to cross areas subject to slope instability and periodic glacial dam outbursts from Bering Lake.

Demographics

Katalla first appeared on the 1910 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village. It continued to report until 1940, after which it was abandoned.

References

External links

Katalla and Controller Bay Alaska Project
{{Chugach Census Area, Alaska Geography of Chugach Census Area, Alaska Ghost towns in Alaska

Geography

History

Demographics

References

Further reading

External links