Dillingham Wedding

Dillingham (IPA: [d l hm]) is a city in Dillingham Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 2,470.

The area around Dillingham was inhabited by both Yupik and Athabaskans. It became a trade center when Russians built Alexandrovski Redoubt (Post) there in 1818. The area was called Nushagak, after the Nushagak River. Nushagak became a place where different groups from the Kuskokwim River, the Alaska Peninsula and the Cook Inlet came to trade or live at the post. In 1837 a Russian Orthodox mission was built at Nushagak.

In 1881, after the Alaska Purchase by the United States, the United States Signal Corps built a weather station at Nushagak. In 1884 the first salmon cannery in the Bristol Bay region was constructed east of the site of modern-day Dillingham. Ten more were built by 1900. The post office east of Nushagak at Snag Point and the town were named in 1904 after United States Senator Paul Dillingham, who had toured Alaska extensively with his Senate subcommittee during 1903.

In 1918 and 1919, an influenza epidemic left no more than 500 survivors around Dillingham. A hospital and orphanage were established in Kanakanak after the epidemic, 6 miles (10 km) south of Dillingham.