Chicken, Alaska was named because nobody could spell the original name!
In the late 1800s, during a gold rush in Alaska, The early miners that got there found that food was scarce, but the South Fork area was abundant in a bird named Ptarmigan. Ptarmigan is the Alaskan state bird, and it bears a resemblance to a chicken. Eating Ptarmigan helped the miners stay alive.
When a town around that area was to be named in 1902, people suggested the name "Ptarmigan," with full quotation marks. They decided to drop the quotes, but they ran into a problem: they couldn't agree on how to spell Ptarmigan!
To avoid future ridicule, they decided to avoid the name and just give it the name of Chicken!