Founder's Monument

This waterfront monument marks the birth of Seward. In nineteen oh three, a steamer sailed into Resurrection Bay carrying a landing party with a big idea. They came to found a town that would serve as the ocean gateway for a railroad pushing deep into Alaska's interior.

The founders chose this spot and named the new town for William Seward, the secretary of state who had bought Alaska from Russia. The party laid out a grid of wide streets and city blocks that still shapes Seward today. The town grew into an ice free deep water port linked by rail to the heart of the state, and it remains the southern end of the Alaska Railroad.