page_title: Fort Liscum
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Liscum / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail from postcard depicting Fort Liscum, near Valdez, Alaska
context_page_description: Fort Liscum was a United States Army post in the Alaska Territory on the south shore of Valdez Bay, across from the modern site of Valdez, Alaska. It operated from 1900 to 1922.
context_section_description: In 1899, Captain William R. Abercrombie designated a site for a military reservation at Port Valdez. Port Valdez was the trail head for the Valdez-Eagle Trail to Fort Egbert, near Eagle, Alaska. Abercrombie selected 650 acres on the south side of the bay near a point known as Ludington's Landing. The site was chosen for its deep anchorage, a nearby mountain stream providing a continuous supply of fresh water, and a location, in Abercrombie's words, "just far enough from the head of Port Valdez to be beyond the influences of the whisky element to be found in frontier towns." The head of Port Valdez was the original site of Valdez, Alaska, which, as the start of the "All-American Route" to the Klondike, attracted a steady stream of prospectors.
caption: Postcard of Fort Liscum, 1913
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