Killisnoo was an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Killisnoo Island Killisnoo Island is a small island in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska, at . It is located just off the central west coast of Admiralty Island, south of the city of Angoon. Killisnoo Island, an unincorporated area, is a settlement ...

in the Hoonah-Angoon 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 ...

, near

Angoon Angoon (sometimes formerly spelled Angun, ) is a city on Admiralty Island, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 572; by the 2010 census the population had declined to 459. For statistical purposes, it is in the Hoonah- ...

Admiralty Island Admiralty Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. It is long and wide with an area of , making it the seventh-largest island in the United States and the 132nd largest island in the world. It is one of the A ...

. Killisnoo had a post office until it closed in 1930. The community was known by several alternative names, including Kanas-nu, Kanasnu, Kenasnow and Killishoo.

History

Killisnoo Island has long been inhabited by

Tlingit people The Tlingit or Lingít ( ) are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. , they constitute two of the 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, Tribes of Alaska. Most Tlingit are Alaska Natives; ...

. In the late 1800s, the

North West Trading Company The North West Trading Company was organized in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1879 by Paul Schulze and Henry Villard in order to do business in Alaska. It established a trading post at Killisnoo in 1878; this soon grew to include a fish pr ...

built a fish processing plant at Killisnoo and many

Tlingit The Tlingit or Lingít ( ) are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. , they constitute two of the 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, Tribes of Alaska. Most Tlingit are Alaska Natives; ...

moved from nearby Angoon and other areas to Killisnoo to work at the plant. The plant was destroyed in a fire in 1928 and most of the residents left Killisnoo. The St. Andrew Church in Killisnoo was destroyed by fire in 1927, and the congregation built a new church called St. John the Baptist church in Angoon. Like nearby Angoon, Killisnoo receives less rain than most of southeastern Alaska. Whaler's Cove Lodge is an active hunting and fishing lodge located on Killisnoo.

Demographics

Killisnoo first appeared on the 1890 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village of 79 residents. Although it was considered to be a Tlingit village, Whites outnumbered Tlingits by 44 to 33, with 2 Asians. It continued to appear until 1940, when most of the residents left. It was later annexed into the neighboring city of

References

External links and further reading

*
A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska
'' by Sergei Kan, University of Oklahoma Press 2013, hardcover, 271 pages, 137 black and white photographs of people and scenes in Killisnoo and southeastern Alaska taken circa 1910,
"A Russian-American Photographing Native Alaska"
illustrated review by Maurice Berger in the photography blog "Lens" in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' July 17, 2013 {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Hoonah–Angoon Census Area, Alaska Unincorporated communities in Alaska Unincorporated communities in Unorganized Borough, Alaska