Girdwood is located in southcentral Alaska, just a 45-minute drive from Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. The drive from Anchorage to Girdwood offers some of the most beautiful sightseeing in the world as the Seward Highway winds between the Turnagain Arm and the Chugach Mountains. Girdwood has a permanent population of about 2,000 and is tucked away in a tiny valley within the Chugach Mountains..

Girdwood, Alaska was founded as a gold mining town at the turn of the century. Originally named Glacier City, the town is surrounded by seven permanent glaciers. Girdwood was renamed after Irish immigrant and linen merchant, James Girdwood, who had four gold claims on Crow Creek, where people pan for gold to this day. The beginning of railroad construction in 1915, by the federal government, spurred the growth of the town.

In 1954, eleven local men formed the Alyeska Ski Corporation and began working on building a first-class ski resort in Alaska. In 1960, the first chairlift was erected, and a day lodge was built.

On Good Friday, March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake ripped through Southcentral Alaska, dropping the coastal edges along Turnagain Arm by eight to ten feet. Consequently, the new Girdwood townsite is two and a half miles up the valley, closer to the base of Mt. Alyeska, from its original location near the Arm.