The city derived its name from Point Barrow, which was named by Frederick William Beechey in 1825 after Sir John Barrow of the British Admiralty. The location has been home to Native Inupiat Eskimo people for over 1,000 years and is called Ukpeagvik, or "place where snowy owls are hunted", in Inupiaq. In the Inupiaq language the location of Barrow is called Ukpeagvik, which means "the place where we hunt Snowy Owls".
Archaeological sites in the area indicate the Inupiat lived around Barrow as far back as AD 500. Some remains of 16 dwelling mounds from the Birnirk culture of about AD 800 are still in evidence today on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Their position on a slight rise above the high water mark places them in danger of being lost to erosion within a short time.
Dr. Bill Streever, who chairs the North Slope Science Initiative's Science Technical Advisory Panel, writes in his 2009 book Cold: Adventures in the World�s Frozen Places:
Barrow, like most communities in Alaska, looks temporary, like a pioneer settlement. It is not. Barrow is among the oldest permanent settlements in the United States. Hundreds of years before the European Arctic explorers showed up, starving and freezing and succumbing to hardship, Barrow was more or less where it is now, a natural hunting place at the base of a peninsula that pokes out into the Beaufort Sea. ... Yankee whalers sailed here, learning about the bowhead whale from Inupiat hunters ... Later, the military came, setting up a radar station, and in 1947 a science center was founded at Barrow.
Royal Navy officers were in the area to explore and map the Arctic coastline of North America. The United States Army established a meteorological and magnetic research station at Barrow in 1881, and the Cape Smythe Whaling and Trading Station was established in 1893.
In 1888 a Presbyterian church was built at Barrow, and in 1901 a United States Post Office was opened.
In 1935 the famous
