On July 21st, 1917, a salmon tender pulled into Seward with news of deaths in the major storms that had encompassed Cook Inlet.

The crew on the tender reported that five fishermen were lost and two Kenai fish traps had been washed away as the storms lashed the coastline there.

Fish traps dotted the seascape throughout Alaska and were utilized by the canneries to provide fish for processing. and, the fishermen on boats hated the super-efficient traps that canneries used throughout the early 1900s. 

When Alaska gained statehood the legislature immediately outlawed the contraptions from Alaskan waters.

  1917, 21, Cook Inlet, deaths, july, storms, traps