Alaska Commercial Company
The Alaska Commercial Company was a company operating retail stores in Alaska from 1868 to 1922 . The Hutchinson, Kohl & Company from San Francisco took over the trade interests of the Russian-American company in 1867 after the purchase of Alaska from Russia and changed the name to "Alaska Commercial Company".
The shops in remote villages also served as courthouses and post offices and were often the core around which new settlements developed. Since cash was not yet an established means of payment, there was also trade in goods such as fur money or fish, as well as gold and other precious metals.
In 1922, the Alaska Commercial Company was taken over by a group of employees who changed its name to the Northern Commercial Company . The company became the main supplier of heavy equipment and construction equipment in Alaska. Department stores and tire shops opened in the developing cities.
The Northern Commercial Company was divided into three individual companies and sold in 1974. Nordstrom bought the department stores , the machinery and equipment division was taken over by a Seattle company, and the remaining eleven rural stores went to the Community Enterprise Development Corporation of Alaska (CEDC), which continued to operate them under the original name of Alaska Commercial Company .
In 1992, the CEDC sold the Alaska Commercial Company to the North West Company , a company spun off from the Hudson's Bay Company .
Web links
- Alaska Commercial Company (Engl.)