Sitka Cold Storage came into being around 1926 when W.P. Mills incorporated with a dozen shareholders in order to buy the Booth Fisheries Company plant, which had been forced into bankruptcy by the Depression. Sitka Cold Storage began operating in 1931 and soon became a waterfront fixture. By 1935 they were freezing a million and a half founds of salmon and more than 1250 tierces of mild cured salmon per year. They expanded the store and locker in 1946 and established a radio telephone station, KMP, in 1947 to give fish prices and other fishing information and to relay messages to fishermen over the airwaves. L.T. Peterson was manager of Sitka Cold Storage from 1933-1947 and resumed the position in 1955, the same year Norton Clapp bought the controlling interest in the company. P.S. Ganty was named president. The plant was destroyed in a $2 million dollar fire, July 7, 1973, leaving 150 tons of rotting fish to be cleaned up in addition to the fire debris. [DeArmond, R.N., A Sitka Chronology, 1867-1987, and From Sitka's Past.]