{"id":125,"slug":"old-girdwood-townsite-girdwood-alaska","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The first Girdwood stood at the mouth of Glacier Creek where it meets Turnagain Arm, a mining supply settlement born of the Turnagain gold rush that drew prospectors up the Arm in the 1890s. The community — recorded early on as Glacier City before taking the Girdwood name — served the placer camps of Crow Creek and the surrounding drainages, and its streets faced the tidal flats of one of the most extreme bore-tide inlets in North America."]},{"heading":"Documented history","paragraphs":["On March 27, 1964, the great Alaska earthquake dropped the entire coastal plain bordering Turnagain Arm by several feet. The subsidence put the old townsite within reach of the high tide, and tidal flooding finished what the shaking started. Rather than rebuild on ground the sea could now claim, residents relocated the community inland to higher, drier footing up the valley — the site modern Girdwood and the Alyeska resort area occupy today.","The state historic-sites inventory preserves the sequence plainly: founding at the creek mouth, destruction by subsidence and tide, removal inland. The archive notes a magnitude figure in the legacy source that does not match the accepted record and omits it accordingly. What was left behind at the Arm's edge is a footprint, not a ruin — the definition of a former townsite."]}],"name":"Old Girdwood townsite","aliases":[],"type":"FORMER_TOWNSITE","type_label":"Former Townsite","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","GHOST_TOWN"],"groups":["dark-history","ghost-towns"],"desc":"Original settlement displaced by the 1964 earthquake’s effects.","full_desc":"A former townsite in Girdwood, Alaska, Old Girdwood townsite is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Original settlement displaced by the 1964 earthquake’s effects. HauntHunt files it with ghost towns and dark history. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Girdwood","county":null,"state":"Alaska","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":null,"lon":null,"coord_kind":null,"status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Historic town location distinct from the active relocated community. Legacy source gives an incorrect magnitude, omitted here; extent of surviving structures needs survey.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":55,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"The state describes the original Glacier Creek–Turnagain Arm settlement and relocation inland following subsidence and tidal flooding in 1964. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Historic Sites' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Historic Sites","url":"https://www.alaska.gov/kids/learn/historicsites.htm","publisher":"State of Alaska","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Historic Sites","url":"https://www.alaska.gov/kids/learn/historicsites.htm","publisher":"State of Alaska","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}