Artifact of the Month: June 2025

Marlyn Fish Company

In August 1931, the Marlyn Fish Company, owned by Atlantic Coast Fisheries, announced their intent to create a new market for Ketchikan salmon. Marlyn, managed locally by Ketchikan banker and businessman J.E. Berg, became the first company to ship quick-frozen pink salmon fillets to East Coast markets.

The new company bought its salmon daily from Otto Anderson's fish trap located off Vallenar Point on the north end of Gravina Island. Under a lease agreement, the fish were processed at the Ketchikan Cold Storage, which at that time had the only quick-freezing equipment in Alaska. Individually boxed, frozen pink salmon fillets were shipped by rail from Prince Rupert to New York and other Eastern cities.

A photograph by Elliott Fisher of two men holding king salmon in front of the Marlyn Fish Company office is this month's featured artifact.

Object ID #: THS 61.8.1.452