Bird Creek drains a watershed of  48,471 acres (19,616 ha) in the Chugach Mountains and flows southwest for 16 miles (26 km) to Turnagain Arm, about 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Anchorage and 12 miles (19 km) west of Girdwood, Alaska. Local miners had already been using the name when Walter C. Mendenhall of the US Geological Survey first recorded it in 1900.

In 1897 a small group of miners staked claims on Bird Creek, and by 1900 six of them had founded a settlement there. Mining never turned a profit, but construction of the railroad from Seward to Anchorage spurred the settlement’s growth. In 1909 a sawmill was moved from Glacier Creek, near Girdwood, to Bird Creek to supply timber and pilings for extending the railroad west from Kern Creek along Turnagain Arm. The mill employed 35 men, 10 horses and a steam donkey engine. Weekly mail service from Seward began in 1914. Railroad workers were based at the Bird Creek section house, which also served as a flag stop until the 1950s, when the Seward Highway opened, giving easier access to the Bird and Indian valleys. In the 1960s 10 couples pooled their resources to buy the Charles Pierce homestead on Bird Creek, and more families soon settled the nearby Bystedt homestead.

Until 1996 Bird Creek was home to the Bird House, a tavern that drew 1970s pipeline workers, skiers and tourists in search of a quintessentially Alaskan experience. Housed in a funky, one-room, circa-1903 miner’s cabin, it was run by the prankster Dick Delak, who took over as owner and bartender in 1968. After Delak died in a plane crash in 1993, his widow, Susan, kept the bar going until it burned down on February 18th 1996. It has since been recreated inside Chilkoot Charlie’s, another characterful establishment in Spenard, Anchorage, whose owner, Mike Gordon, bought the Bird House name from Susan Delak and rebuilt the bar down to the last detail.  Read more here and here. Explore more of Bird Creek and Turnagain Arm here: