Anchorage Daily News

KASILOF

POPULATION: 596 (2007)

LOCATION: On the east shore of Cook Inlet on the Kenai Peninsula, on the Sterling Highway, 12 miles south of the City of Kenai.

DESCRIPTION: Not so much a community as a geographic location on the Kenai Peninsula where most residents are non-Native and tied to the diverse economy of the area centered on the city of Kenai. Oil and gas processing, timber, commercial and sport fishing, government, retail businesses and tourism-related services provide employment, while about 155 residents hold commercial fishing permits. The one school is attended by about 230 students. During the April 2000 U.S. Census, 181 residents were employed, median household income was $43,929, per capita income was $21,211, and 26 percent of the residents were living below the official U.S. poverty level.

HISTORY: Kasilof was an agricultural settlement of Kenaitze Indians that grew around a stockade built by the Russian Kolomin of the Lebedef-Lastochkin Company. A partial excavation of the area in 1937 found 31 well-preserved houses.

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