Throughout the United States is a great heritage of abandoned towns serving as a testament to a past that no longer exists. These ghost towns are reminders of the efforts of pioneers, settlers, and mining operations that once made it profitable for people to establish a city in the frontier and make trade possible that would perpetuate residency. Yet, for numerous reasons many of these once flourishing towns met with hard times and gradually lost population and retail services that made living there impossible.

Causes

Whether the town was passed over for railroad service, by the construction  of a major highway that made it too inconvenient to travel to that village, or a mining encampment whose ore ran out and depleted the local economy, ghost towns are all that remains. Those rotting wooden structures remind us of good times past that once brought citizens to that point in time when living there was an attractive prospect. In most cases the slow but inevitable decay of the population and the local businesses leaves a ghost town in its wake.

A shadow descends

In two closely adjacent communities in rural Alaska, Portlock and Port Chatham there was no gradual pull out of the local residents because for some very disturbing reasons in 1949. The entire population hastily exited their town and virtually overnight the two communities became ghost towns. Why?

Something happened

Both being remote ports for fishing and canning, being run by Eskimo and Russian descendants the local business was so good and attracted so many people that the area was even assigned a US Post Office. It seemed impossible that a sudden withdrawal of the townspeople could happen, but it did. From the turn of the century in 1900 through the World War II for years a strange succession of disappearances, horrific murders, and sightings haunted the people of Port Chatham and Portlock that eventually intimidated the people into a complete voluntary evacuation leaving equipment, housing, offices, and personal belongings to rot in the elements because something terrible had gone on way too long!

Frightening encounters

It all began almost from its very start. What seemed the stuff of camp fire tales and horror stories emerged to grip the community when hunters that had gone into the foothills of nearby mountains never returned. When the horribly disfigured bodies of townspeople who had hiked into the nearby slopes were found sliding down ripped to pieces in ways that a bear never would have done the signs of something sinister were there. Fishermen turned up missing after boating down the nearby coastline and camping inland never to be seen again!

Evidence

First large footprints, some as long as 18 inches in length began to appear inland not far from the two villages. The locals noted that the impressions made by people who had disappeared often merged with the large footprints of the unknown tracks and vanished! Then the sightings began! This was where the terrifying tales seemed to align with the untimely deaths of those citizens now lived in Portlock and Port Chatham. One man, a prospector, who was surveying the land outside of town for resources that could be mined had climbed to the top of a tree to get his bearings and a better overall lay of the land. What he saw threw him into a panic as a group of vicious hairy men began converging on his position. Describing them as “Devils” he was lucky enough to scramble down the tree and get to his boat so that he could row out into the sea! He had sworn that if he had time enough to row out into the coastal waters they would have killed him in short order. Some people gave these creatures names such as the “Mountain Apes” or “Hairy Men”. The Inuit tribesmen had their own name for the unseen killers who waited for the unwise to venture beyond the safety of their communities.

Another terrifying incident

One man who was a true bastion of respectability, well trusted by the local people ended up being brutally murdered when his head was crushed by a heavy piece of mining equipment by what many of the towns folk said had been wielded by a very powerful and large brute of a man if it had been possible at all. Yet, these kinds of questionable deaths became common place. The two communities of Portlock and Port Chatham managed to endure the years of World War II as if being within striking distance of the Imperial Japanese Fleet wouldn’t have been daunting enough!

Frightful history

It is unknown why the police, local sheriffs, or federal agents were not brought in to investigate, perhaps with the priorities of the war and the remoteness of the two fishing villages it may just have been too troublesome for authorities to expend resources and manpower over. Yet, a common pattern in the Pacific Northwest seems to manifest itself in people being chased, murdered, or vanished in the presence of what we now call, “Bigfoot”. It appears that this species of Sasquatch is unpredictable and can be deadly whenever encountered.

Aftermath

Although some people will forever dispute the events at Port Lock and Port Chatham as wives tales something threatening definitely happened and was never solved. Whatever or whoever was responsible obviously forced a rapid abandonment of the two fishing villages by the townspeople to other nearby communities for safety. Today these two ghost towns located on the Kenai Peninsula remain uninhabited. An expedition to the area by Bigfoot researchers has been conducted. One might recall that a number of very strange paranormal events occurred in Nome, Alaska, also a coastal town further north on the shores of the largest and most wild of the 50 states.

Conclusion

It might be assumed that the brutal deaths and missing persons of Portlock and Port Chatham could just been examples of foul play in a lawless environment, bear maulings, or simply accidents, but we need to assess history properly. Whereas Hollywood often depicts pioneer life as violent and filled with hired gunmen and frequent gun play the “Old West” and pioneer life were not as violent as today’s condensed big city populations with the shootings that occur in places like Chicago, Baltimore, or Detroit. To this day, Alaskans steer clear of Portlock and Port Chatham.