Honoring Our U.S. Protectorates: Baker Island...

Baker Island is an unincorporated US territory located in the South Pacific Ocean. It is a narrow coral atoll and a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge with an area of about 0.6 square miles. There is no natural freshwater sources on the island, and that's one of the reasons why humans cannot live there. Baker Island is located in the UTC-12 Time Zone, so it is one of the very last places on the planet to see the Sun rise and set. The ecosystem of the island is composed of dozens of seabird species, shorebirds, and endangered sea turtles. There are no ports or harbors there, and anchoring offshore is prohibited and very difficult due to the narrow fringing reef that surrounds it.

The first people to settle on Baker Island were William and Hannah Gilley around 1806. The Gilley family lived there for 123 years, raising livestock, growing potatoes and corn, and selling butter, eggs, fish, and feathers. They lived there when a Light Station was built in 1828, and William Gilley was the first keeper of it. In 1832, Captain Michael Baker saw the island from his ship. He claimed the island in 1855, and later sold his interest to the American Guano Company. With the help of Alfred G. Benson and Charles H. Judd, the American Guano Company formally took over the island in 1857. Guano was a popular fertilizer at this time, and the Guano Act of 1856 gave permission to Americans to be able to claim any uninhabited islands that had guano. The United States acquired the island under the Guano Islands Act in 1857. Guano was mined on Baker Island by the American Guano Company from 1859-1878. The U.S. Department of the Interior colonized Baker Island from Hawaii in 1936, and they evacuated in early 1942 during World War II. During the war, Allied forces occupied it in late 1943, and they build an air base. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services have had jurisdiction of the island since 1974, and they visit the island periodically for scientific studies, even though the island is now uninhabitable. Baker Island was designated part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2009.