Originally called "Glacier City", Girdwood was founded as a supply camp for placer gold miners with claims along the creeks feeding Turnagain Arm. It was renamed for Colonel James Girdwood, a Belfast-born, Scots-Irish entrepreneur and linen merchant who staked the first four gold claims along Crow Creek in 1896.The town was moved 2.5 miles (4 km) up the valley after the devastating Good Friday Earthquake of 1964, when the land under the original townsite subsided into Turnagain Arm, putting much of the town below high tide. The land has not all since been reclaimed, as one can still see 'drowned' cabins in the marshy areas where the city formerly extended. Girdwood was incorporated as a city in 1970 and became part of the Municipality of Anchorage when the Greater Anchorage Area Borough unified with the City of Anchorage in 1975.