Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Thorne Bay, AK

Thorne Bay is a city in Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Alaska, on the east side of Prince of Wales Island.

The city was incorporated on August 9, 1982, as a second-class city.

The 2020 census counted 476 residents in 208 households in Thorne Bay, up slightly from 471 in 2010.

Thorne Bay is named for Frank Manly Thorn, the sixth Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, whose surname was misspelled as Thorne in the original record and never corrected.

The community first appeared on the 1890 census as the unincorporated settlement of Tolstoi Bay with 17 residents, returned in 1970 as Thorne Bay, became a census-designated place in 1980, and formally incorporated in 1982.

Thorne Bay began as a large logging camp for the Ketchikan Pulp Company in 1960, originally located in Hollis, and in the 1960s and 1970s it was the largest logging camp in North America, hosting over 1,500 residents at its peak.

The logging company pulled out in 2001 after a breach-of-contract dispute with the United States Forest Service over a fifty-year timber contract signed in 1954.

Thorne Bay displays the world's largest tree grapple, known as the claw, in front of the town.

Today the local employment sector is based primarily in the Forest Service and public education, and many residents are seasonal.

The city's school is Thorne Bay School, operated by the Southeast Island School District.