Mary's Igloo Alaska 1900 Long Sleeve T-Shirt

During the gold prospecting period of the early 1900s, non-Natives named the village north of the Nome Census Area in Alaska "Mary's Igloo," after an Inupiat woman named Mary, who welcomed miners, trappers and others into her home for coffee. During that period, Mary's Igloo was a transfer point for supplies for the gold fields upriver on the Kuzitrin and Kougarok rivers. The supplies were offloaded from ocean boats onto barges, which were towed to their destinations. A post office and store were opened at Mary's Igloo in 1901. By the 1910 census, Mary's Igloo was a community of 141 Inupiat and Anglo-Americans, who were miners, innkeepers, missionaries and support crews for the barges. It had schools, a post office and other services.