24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Kenai, AK

Kenai is a city in Kenai Peninsula Borough on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula near the outlet of the Kenai River to Cook Inlet, 158 miles southwest of Anchorage by road; its Dena'ina name is Shk'ituk't, meaning where we slide down.

The 2020 census counted 7,424 residents in Kenai, up from 7,100 in 2010, in 2,953 households, making it the seventh-most populated city in Alaska.

Kenai first appeared on the 1880 census as the unincorporated Creole village of Kenai Rédoute and officially incorporated as a city on May 10, 1960.

Kenai is named after the Dena'ina word ken or kena, meaning flat, meadow, open area with few trees, describing the area along the mouth of the Kenai River.

In 1786, Pytor Zaykov built Fort Nicholas on the site of modern Kenai, the first European settlement on the Alaskan mainland, and in 1797 the Dena'ina attacked the fort in the Battle of Kenai; a smallpox epidemic in 1838 killed half of the Dena'ina population.

After the Alaska Purchase, the United States Army established Fort Kenay in 1869, and the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church was built in 1895-96 and is still in use today.

Shipping and canning companies in the early 1900s made Kenai a port city, and commercial fishing was the primary activity through the 1920s; the first dirt road from Anchorage was built in 1951.

Wildwood Army Station was established in 1953 as a major communications post, was conveyed to the Kenai Native Association in 1974, and now serves as the Wildwood Correctional Complex.

Oil was discovered at Swanson River, 20 miles northeast of Kenai, in 1957, the first major oil discovery in Alaska, and offshore oil discoveries in Cook Inlet in 1965 caused a period of rapid growth.

Kenai was named one of the All-America Cities in 1992 and again in 2011, and its motto is Village with a Past - City with a Future.