Ushakovskoye was named after the explorer and founder of the polar station in Rogers Bay, Georgy Ushakov, who discovered a number of new islands in the Russian arctic.

The Soviet Government, in 1926, declared its sovereignty over the island; and, to confirm this, Ushakovskoye was founded by Georgy Ushakov's expedition on August 14, 1926.

[1] The initial population of the settlement included Chukchi and Russian families, totalling about 60 people[7] In 1928, the first child, PI Pavlov, was born in the village.

[9] The establishment of the Russian claim and the settlement was also not without its troubles when, in September 1934, a new governor, Konstantin Semenchuk, previously posted to Iran, took office to supervise the attempts by the Russians to turn the tundra into a vegetable garden for all Russia, allegedly announcing the commencement of his time in office by gathering the people of Ushakovskoye together and informing them that, "Up here I am everything.

"[10] Due to the isolated nature of the settlement, it was only in the winter of 1935, over a year after Semenchuk's arrival, that suspicions were first aroused when Otto Schmidt received a communication from Semenchuk requesting additional medical assistance to deal with an outbreak of typhoid and scurvy, despite there having been no previous outbreaks of typhoid being reported in the Arctic.

[10] The case was deemed so important as an example to dissuade other rural governors from lapsing into autocracy that Chief Public Prosecutor André Vishinsky took personal charge of the trial and, despite allegedly presenting signs of insanity during the trial, Semenchuk was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad.

[10] The settlement grew and developed, until at the end of 1970 it had a school, club, shop, post office, hospital, helipad, a modest museum of natural history, an underground repository in the permafrost for storing meat, a temporary corral (for the slaughter of reindeer), the polar station "Rogers Bay" airport for An-2, Mi-2, Mi-6 and Mi-8 aircraft, fuel storage and bulk storage of coal, library and a communal bath.