🪦 Part of A Series On Wrangell Cemeteries 🪦

If you drive down the Zimovia Highway, one of the first landmarks you’ll pass is Wrangell Memorial Cemetery.

It was intended to be Wrangell’s final resting place, but it became a place that brought Wrangell to life.

Cemetery Point

By the turn of the century, Wrangell was outgrowing the Indian Cemetery, a patch of woods used since 1876 as a burial ground. It began under Tsimshian Christian missionary Philip “Clah” McKay, who encouraged burial over traditional cremation. The cemetery proved popular, and headstones sprung up in the underbrush at odd angles, with no respect to the compass. By the end of the century, the cemetery spilled out onto the beach, where totems, fences, and headstones mingled among the shrubbery.

It was a cemetery in the wilderness, a quiet spot far enough away from Wrangell that no road connected it to the town. To get there, the living and the dead went by boat to Cemetery Point.

With each death, the voyage from the harbor to Cemetery Point became a solemn, somber ritual. When mourners outnumbered the available boat space, they simply walked the winding, rocky beach down the coast. This tradition to honor the dead became a way of life, but it had drawbacks. When bad weather prohibited the voyage, a dead body might wait for days before burial. As one Wrangell resident described it:

The population boom following the Klondike Gold Rush (1898 - 1902) turned Wrangell from a sleepy, post-gold rush town into one of Alaska’s leading cities. New buildings went up and the town incorporated as a city. At the end of 1902, a new voice emerged to promote local progress: the Alaska Sentinel. Perhaps no one agitated, advocated, and pushed for improvements to the cemetery more than the Alaska Sentinel. In its very first edition, published November 20, 1902, an Alaska Sentinel editorial wrote:

One week later, a subscriber replied, and the Sentinel published its very first letter to the editor:

To find a more suitable place, a new generation of civic leaders would have to create it.

The Redmen Cemetery

Despite its name, the Red Men’s Club was a fraternal club for white men, part of a larger, national organization. Wrangell’s chapter occupied the Red Men’s Lodge, a prominent gathering space on the town’s waterfront. They organized for social events and to promote local development.

Like many social and religious organizations in the West, the club acquired cemetery space for its members, but it was far from the idyllic Westestern image of a picturesque, green pasture. On May 30, 1907, the Wrangell Sentinel wrote:

To pay for the work, the Red Men threw a dance and raised $48:

The Red Men were breaking new ground — literally and figuratively. They turned a patch of rugged southeast Alaska terrain into an inviting home. The Red Men implemented a rule that all headstones must face the same direction, ensuring uniformity and consistency. In July 1908, the Red Men announced plots were for sale.

With that, the Red Men Cemetery became the popular place for Wrangell to bury its dead, Native and non-Native. The Indian Cemetery, shrouded in the woods behind it, began slowly disappearing into the underbrush and further into the past.

Cemetery Road

The Red Men made finding a place to bury the dead easier, but getting there was just as inconvenient as before. In 1913, the Red Men tried to improve the situation by bulding a wharf inside Cemetery Point:

While the wharf made landing easier, everyone knew the problem had to be solved over land.

To get the ball rolling, the City of Wrangell hired contractors to build a 6-foot wide gravel walkway in the direction of the cemetery. It would only be 700 feet long, well short of the distance needed to reach the cemetery, but the city hoped future funding would finish the job. The town paid for the walkway through community dances and fundraisers.

The road sat unfinished for years, until 1916 when the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce appealed to the Alaska Road Commission for $5,000 to connect the town to the cemetery.

In the summer of 1918, as Allied Forces pushed into France, the Alaska Road Commission pushed down the coast, connecting Wrangell with its cemetery for the first time. The Wrangell Sentinel, a long-time advocate for the cemetery, celebrated in its August 15, 1918 issue:

While the road to the cemetery was a dead end, it was about to spark new life.

A Playground for the Living

City Park

One year after the road’s completion, the Wrangell Sentinel published an article entitled Concerning a Park for Wrangell:

The woods south of the Red Men Cemetery were undeveloped, save for a small collection of headstones. On one side ran a small creek, on the other a wide open view of the ocean. It instantly became a popular picnic spot and destination for gatherings, especially among the town’s first automobile owners.

To enhance the use of the park, the U.S. Forest Service constructed fireplaces, tables, and garbage containers in 1928. At some point, a small playground was added the north end of City Park.

Bathing Beach

City Park’s wide, gentle-sloping beach provides hours of endless exploring, but it makes swimming difficult. For that, Wrangell looked to Cemetery Beach. The beach faced north and was well positioned to catch the sun on long, summer days. Against a backdrop of a graveyard, Wrangell came out to splash and play. Over the years, it went by the name Bathing Beach, Swimming Beach, and Cemetery Beach. Early on, the local Women’s Civic Club adopted the beach and took care of it. They constructed changing huts for the public, and they organized to clean up trash which accumulated.

The June 6, 1941 Wrangell Sentinel wrote:

Baseball

In the years that followed, Wrangell filled in the area between the cemetery and the shore to construct a baseball field, bleachers, restrooms, and a concession stand. It was as if the April 27, 1911 issue of the Wrangell Sentinel predicted the future when it wrote:

Before the baseball field retired to become a community garden, an occasional pop fly ball might sail over the fence and find its way into the cemetery.

In 1958, The City of Wrangell purchased the land for City Park from the Bureau of Land Management, paying $750 for 27.68 acres of land.

Wrangell Memorial Cemetery

In 1943, the City of Wrangell purchased the Red Men Cemetery:

Within weeks, the Wrangell City Council had a new name for the cemetery:

The first person buried in the newly renamed Wrangell Memorial Cemetery may have been Charlie Jones, Shakes the 7th, who died in 1944. His headstone may well be the largest, tallest headstone in Wrangell.

Today, roughly 500 people are buried in Wrangell Memorial Cemetery, though recent investigation has revealed that not all graves have markers. Space is running out, and the community established nearby Sunset Gardens Cemetery in the 1960s. As time passes, and both cemeteries fill, there are ongoing efforts to ensure adequate final resting places.

Thanks to the work of volunteers, many headstone photos, clippings, and facts about the people buried in Wrangell Memorial Cemetery are available at FindaGrave.com.

Cemetery Point Lives On

For years, Cemetery Point served as a symbol of the final voyage from life into death. It was a place near the water where people gathered to say farewell. With the construction of Heritage Harbor in recent years, the point was covered with rock and turned into a breakwater.

But the legacy of Cemetery Point lives on today in the Wrangell Mariner’s Memorial. The thoughtfully designed monument contains plaques for the dead and a special tribute to the 111 who died aboard the wreck of the Star of Bengal. Today, as in the past, this point of land draws Wrangell together to celebrate and honor the dead.

The cemetery was a catalyst for Wrangell’s growth. Caring for the dead crossed cultures and united the town. The recreational areas around the cemetery ensured the memory of the dead would never be far from the living.

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Wrangell Cemeteries

Researching history is amazing, but disturbing headstones is a bad idea. Before attempting to move or clean a headstone, consult with local government, tribal organizations, and next-of-kin to make sure you’re doing it the right way! You never want to be responsible for damaging a grave, even with the best of intentions. There are people in Alaska who are experts in this field, and you should seek out their advice!