Researching the Wrangell Institute

A black-and-white photo of the Wrangell Institute sits in front of a picture of the Zimovia Highway in modern-day Wrangell, Alaska. Google Street View image by Killian Booker.

I was 16 years old when I snuck into the Wrangell Institute. The year was 2001, and the buildings were in a clear state of decay. A chain-link fence surrounded the campus, but there were occasional places you could pull back the fence to get inside. The buildings were rotted and full of graffiti. These days, the buildings are gone, but the legacy remains.

When I started researching Wrangell history as a hobby, I made a list of topics I knew would make fascinating stories. Wrangell Institute was high on that list, but I waited for the right time to tackle it. I think that time has come. I’ve grown a lot as a researcher in the past few years, and the interest in this topic has never been higher.

I’m not alone in attempting to understand this part of Wrangell’s history, so I created a Wrangell Institute website to share research. My method has always been to deep-dive a topic until I feel satisfied that I have enough to tell a complete story. That won’t change, but this way, I can at least share information along the way and help others out.