Tanana, Alaska
City in the United States in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area
About Tanana
Tanana (Hohudodetlaatl Denh in Koyukon) is a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, Tanana had a population of 246. It was formerly known as Clachotin, adopted by Canadian French.
Jules Jetté (1864–1927), a Jesuit missionary who worked in the area and documented the language, recorded the Koyukon Athabascan name for the village as Hohudodetlaatl Denh, literally, ‘where the area has been chopped’. Several residents are chronicled in the 2012 Discovery Channel TV series Yukon Men. Almost 80% of the town's population are Native Americans, traditionally Koyukon (Denaakk'e) speakers of the large Athabaskan (Dené) language family.
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How Tanana is governed
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Residents of Tanana
Registered voters elect the officials below.
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Mayor
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The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.
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City Manager / Administrator
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The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).
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Police Chief
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Leads the police department.
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Fire Chief
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Leads the fire and emergency services department.
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Public Works Director
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Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.
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Finance Director
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The budget, taxes, and city accounts.
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Planning & Zoning Director
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Land use, zoning, building permits.
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Parks & Recreation Director
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Parks, programs, and public facilities.
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City Council
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The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.
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City Clerk
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Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.
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City Attorney
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The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.
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Boards & Commissions
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Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.
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Municipal Court
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Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.
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Municipal Judge
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Presides over the municipal court.
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History
Prior to arrival of settlers in early 1860, the point of land at the confluence of the Tanana and Yukon Rivers (Nuchalawoyyet, spelled differently in historical accounts) was a traditional meeting and trading place used by members of several indigenous groups. There were as many as five different Athabascan languages spoken in the area in 1868 when the French-Canadian François Xavier Mercier established the first fur-trading post in the area. Noukelakayet Station, later known as Fort Adams, was located on the north bank of the Yukon, about 15 miles (24 km) downstream from the mouth of the Tanana River.
Subsequently, an Anglican mission and several other trading posts were established nearby. In 1898 the U.S. Army, under the leadership of Capt. P.H. Ray, founded Ft. Gibbon at the present location of Tanana. Ft. Gibbon's purpose was to oversee shipping and trading, maintain civil order, and install and take care of telegraph lines connecting to Nome and to Tanana Crossing, on the way to Valdez. All other Euro-American activities in the area near the Tanana-Yukon confluence moved upriver to accommodate Ft. Gibbon and the increased steamboat traffic caused by gold seekers. St. James Church moved to the present site of Tanana to serve the Euro-American population, and the Mission of Our Savior was constructed at the bottom of a hill opposite the confluence. The mission site became a center of activity for indigenous people in the area. Ft. Gibbon closed in 1923, but the town and mission remained.
In the 1930s a regional hospital was built in Tanana, and the Native Village of Tanana was officially chartered by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1939. The hospital served people throughout most of the rural northern regions of Alaska until 1982. During World War II Tanana's airfield was one of the stops for aircraft en route to Russia as part of the Lend-Lease program. Postwar, a White Alice communications site was built on a hill nine miles (14 km) behind Tanana, as a part of the Cold War Era's Distant Early Warning system (DEW-Line). Also during the 1950s the mission closed and the indigenous families still living at the mission site moved down to the main town.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.