What our street name “Kouskov” means...

In the mid 1700s, Russian trappers began hunting sea otters in Alaska. Their first settlement was near present-day Kodiak. Within a few years though, the outposts in Alaska were in desperate need of food, so

a Russian exploring and sea-otter hunting expedition sailed for California. It was headed by Ivan Aleksandrovich Kouskov. On January 8, 1809, Kuskov’s ship, the Kodiak, anchored in Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco.

The Russians stayed about eight months, trapping otters and surveying the land. And setup an outpost 18 miles north of Bodega Bay, on a bluff overlooking a harbor. Here the Russians built a fort made of redwood logs. A log stockade surrounded nine buildings including a large house and a chapel. The stockade had blockhouses and cannons to defend the fort. Outside the stockade were other buildings used as workshops, storehouses, and quarters for the Aleuts. On the beach was a wharf, a tannery, and a place where ships were built. The fort, known as Fort Ross, was dedicated on August 13, 1812.