The Alaska Commercial Company Records primarily consist of individual store records including account books and other financial records, contracts and other legal papers, correspondence, inventories, and vessel manifests. The bulk of the materials include records from the company's Kodiak District, the geographical area confined to the islands and mainland along the Gulf of Alaska. The collection also includes some important records from Dutch Harbor and Unalaska. The Alaska Commercial Company was founded shortly after the purchase of Alaska in 1867. The assets of the Russian-American Company were purchased by Hayward M. Hutchinson, William Kohl, and Associates, who then formed Hutchinson, Kohl & Company. In 1868, the company was reorganized as the Alaska Commercial Company. The company, in its various permutations, played a singularly important part in the history of Alaska with trading stations scattered throughout southwestern, southcentral and southeastern Alaska as well as the northern Aleutian Islands.