Coldfoot
Yukon-Koyukuk (CA) · USGS GNIS name record 1412829
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USGS GNIS Populated Place names in all 50 states and DC. Features in the historical extract or explicitly named historical are excluded; duplicate decision records with identical identities and coordinates are collapsed. GNIS points identify names, not legal or neighborhood boundaries, current occupancy, school attendance or a statistical population. Nearby Census places and tracts remain separately named geographies. Name completeness and currency vary; this is not a claim to include every locally used neighborhood name.
Original USGS record for Coldfoot ↗Dataset snapshot 2026-09-02 · Source record edited 06/07/2022 · NAD83 · approximate source location
USGS description & history
site of a mining camp, at mouth of Slate Creek, on E bank of Middle Fork Koyukuk River, 11 mi. S of Wiseman, Brooks Range
Marshall (1933, p. 39) wrote, "As early as 1899 the town of Slate Creek was started at the mouth of the creek which bears that name. In the summer of 1900 one of the waves of green stampeders got as far up the Koyukuk as this point, then got cold feet, turned around, and departed. This incident was enough to change the first, unromantic appellation of the settlement to Coldfoot." A post office was established here in 1902 and discontinued in 1912 (Ricks, 1965, p. 14). According to Marshall (p. 39) in 1902, Coldfoot, consisted of "one gambling hole, two roadhouses, two stores, seven saloons, and ten prostitutes." Activity subsided when the mining activity moved upstream to Nolan and Wiseman Creeks, and a new town, called Wiseman, was established about 1912.
Source notes may describe earlier conditions.Source files & checksums
SHA-256 20c96936a3ba430b345eed1c7395b6aab52875aac8e1e2905fab37b388cab381
SHA-256 45ad8d56b3bb4990ad8105cdda15ee7d2f07afd6941afe75b783f29b02723697
SHA-256 919fac887628b8547ec1b24fae319522a9481a56909c3914d1e0a2b56783147c