Valdez District Court

This city founded as the twentieth century was about to break, is the terminus of the trans-Alaska Pipeline and the scene of 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The city maintains a large number of parks among which you can find baseball and softball fields; basketball, tennis and volleyball courts; picnic tables; playgrounds; barbecues; gazebos; a pavilion; skate ramps; a memorial to veterans and even a beach with old machinery, remnants of the old Valdez port. The Pink Salmon festival is held here each year, right after the Fourth of July celebration, to celebrate the annual return of 10 to 15 million of these fish, many of which are harvested and processed in this area. At this festival there are the Pink Salmon cook-off, Kids’ Pink Salmon games and the free community Pink Salmon fry. Thew city is home to the Prince William Sound Community college and the Maxine and Jesse Whitney museum. The museum, adjacent to the college, hoses one of the largest collections of Native Alaskan art and artifacts in the world. It also has on exhibit items from the Eskimo museum in Fairbanks. Included among the exhibits in the museum are the natural history of Alaska, Alaska wildlife mounts, ivory and baleen pieces, masks, dolls and fur garments.