A Short History of Wrangell

Wrangell is one of the oldest non-Native settlements in Alaska. In 1811, the Russians began fur trading with area Tlingits, and built a stockade named Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834. The island was named for Ferdinand Von Wrangel, manager of the Russian-American Company around 1830.

The British of Hudson Bay Company leased the fort in 1840, and renamed the stockade Fort Stikine. A large Stikine Indian village known as Kotzlitzna was located 13 miles south of the fort. The Tlingits claimed their own ancient trade rights to the Stikine River, and protested when the Hudson Bay Company began to use their trade routes. But two epidemics of smallpox, in 1836 and 1840, reduced the Tlingit population by half.

The fort was abandoned in 1849 when furs were depleted. The fort remained under the British flag until Alaska's purchase by the U.S. in 1867. In 1868, a U.S. military post called Fort Wrangell was established, named for the island.