Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Ester Ester, AK

Ester is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairbanks North Star Borough and part of the Fairbanks metropolitan area.

At the 2020 census, Ester had a population of 2,416, essentially unchanged from 2,422 in 2010, a decline of 0.2 percent.

Ester began as a gold mining camp on Ester Creek, where the first claim was staked in February 1903 by Latham A. Jones, and Czechoslovak immigrant John “Jack” Mihalcik first discovered gold in the creek and staked his claim in November 1903.

By 1907 Ester City had about 200 people, five saloons, and two hotels, along with a social hall completed in 1907 that became famous for its dance floor.

The Berry post office moved into Ester in 1910, but it was not renamed Ester until 1965, and Ester keeps its own post office with ZIP code 99725.

The Fairbanks Exploration Company bought claims in the Ester area in the mid-1920s, began operations in 1929, and built its Ester camp mess hall in 1933, and the eleven surviving camp buildings form the Ester Camp Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

The old mining camp later operated as Cripple Creek Resort and the Ester Gold Camp, home of the Malemute Saloon, before the resort closed after 2007.

Ester first appeared on the 1910 census as an unincorporated village, erroneously spelled “Esther,” and it was made a census-designated place in 1980.

Ester covers 64.31 square miles, almost all of it land, at an elevation of 720 feet.

The 2020 census counted 1,106 households and 1,300 housing units in Ester, of which 14.9 percent were vacant, and the median age was 36.8 years.