Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Teller

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Teller

Teller’s post office opened in 1900, and 1 of its places is on the National Register

Most of Teller was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1986. Its Register listing is the Norge Storage Site. Below: 12 old photos and papers, maps from 1950 on, and the census since 1910.

1900first post office
1on the National Register
0.0%homes built before 1940
12old photos & papers
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Teller’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Teller began

When was Teller founded?

1900

The Teller post office opened in 1900, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1963.

First census: 125 in 19102020 census: 249126 years
Founding year: the first Teller post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1963.The full story ↓

What stands out about Teller’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

Shrank, then grewLost a third of its people between 1910 and 1930, then grew 3-fold.A town in old photos12 old photos, postcards and papers.
★ What stands out · People over time

Teller, census by census

0100200300192019401960198020002020125 in 1910Low: 76

Lost a third of its people between 1910 and 1930, then grew 3-fold.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Teller’s Wikipedia page.

By decade

Teller, decade by decade

2 decades in the archive, from the 1890s to the 1900s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1890s–1900s12 items
Men and freight on the wharf at Teller, Alaska, ca. 1899c. 1899Men and freight on the wharf at Teller, Alaska, ca. 1…Sand spit at Teller, Alaska ,ca. 1899c. 1899Sand spit at Teller, Alaska ,ca. 1899Dogsled team hauling cart, possibly the Grantley Express, with Eskimo man and two Eskimo women at right, Teller, Alaska…c. 1900Dogsled team hauling cart, possibly the Grantley Expr…Man with box camera on tripod on the beach, Teller, Alaska, ca. 1900c. 1900Man with box camera on tripod on the beach, Teller, A…Men standing on the beach with umiak, or skin boat, Teller, Alaska, ca. 1900c. 1900Men standing on the beach with umiak, or skin boat, T…Teller, Alaska, September 19001900Teller, Alaska, September 1900Teller, Alaska, September 19001900Teller, Alaska, September 1900Teller, Alaska, September 19001900Teller, Alaska, September 1900Tent city along the beach, Teller, Alaska, ca. 1900c. 1900Tent city along the beach, Teller, Alaska, ca. 1900Eskimo boys on a kayak in Grantley Harbor1900Eskimo boys on a kayak in Grantley HarborGroup of Eskimo women and children, Teller, Alaska, 19021902Group of Eskimo women and children, Teller, Alaska, 1…Passengers on beach waiting for steamship CORWIN, Teller, Alaska, October 30, 19021902Passengers on beach waiting for steamship CORWIN, Tel…
1910s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
The story

How Teller came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Teller.

Read it all →

The Inupiat had a fishing camp called Nuuk 32 km (20 mi) south of Teller in the early 19th century. The 1825-28 Beechey expedition found three camps with a total of some 400 inhabitants and a winter camp site with burial grounds in a roughly 10-mile (16 km) radius around the later site of Teller on September 1, 1827.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Teller, 1899 to 2000

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1899In the archiveMen and freight on the wharf at Teller, Alaska, ca. 1899
  3. 20th century
  4. 1900In the archiveDogsled team hauling cart, possibly the Grantley Express, with Eskimo man and two Eskimo …
  5. 1900Post officeThe Teller post office opens
  6. 1950On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  7. 21st century
  8. 2000CensusPopulation peaks at 268
On the map

Teller on the map in 1950

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Teller.

Teller on the 1950 USGS map1950Teller B-3 sheet · 1:63,360

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Teller.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Men and freight on the wharf at Teller, Alaska, ca. 1899
Retake this viewMen and freight on the wharf at Teller, Alaska, ca. 1899, c. 1899

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Teller’s page.

Retake this view · +15
On the National Register

1 historic place in Teller

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1974
Norge Storage Site
Norge Storage Site
Buildings
All 1 listings
Norge Storage SiteBuilding · listed 1974

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Help out

Finish Teller’s story

Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
1 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewMen and freight on the wharf at Teller,…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Questions about Teller’s history

What year was Teller founded?

The Teller post office opened in 1900, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1963.

What is on the National Register in Teller?

One place: the Norge Storage Site (listed 1974).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (11), the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.