Thorne Bay is on the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Island. It rests on gentle hills overlooking its namesake bay, where Alaska Natives hunted and fished for centuries. Thorne Bay, Alaska was named after Frank Manley Thorn, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Geodetics Survey from 1885 through 1889. His name was misspelled when the charts were published. At its largest in the 1960's held over 1500 people. The population of the city started a steep decline after the logging company pulled out of the area in 1999. At the 2010 census the population was 471, down from 557 in 2000. Ketchikan Pulp Co. brought their floating logging camp to shore here from Hollis in 1961, when timber was still the leading sector of the island’s economy. Thorne Bay was home for the world’s largest logging camps in the 1960s. In 1982, a State of Alaska land sale program gave residents the opportunity to incorporate their city.