Walking the Bombardment of Wrangell
LENGTH: 1.7 MILES, 9 Stops
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While Wrangell has grown since 1869, many of the places mentioned in the Bombardment of Wrangell story can still be visited on foot today.
#1. Fort Wrangel
(US Post Office - 112 Federal Way)
A postcard of Fort Wrangel showing the Hospital building (right) and officers quarters (left).
“The fort is well built and is a structure for defense against Indians, quite unlike many posts on the frontier, which are simply quarters and barracks for officers and men. The quarters are thoroughly made—the house for the commanding officer being a story and a half, containing eight rooms and a bath.”
1869: The bombardment story begins inside the garrison of Fort Wrangel. This is where the Army threw a party on Christmas Day 1869 that went late into the night. According to William Tamaree, this is where Shawaan and Esteen were shot, and where Sctudoo was jailed before being hanged — the first execution in Alaska under the United States. If you look up the hill behind the fort, you can see where the Tlingit took the high ground to fire into the fort. If you look down the hill, you can see the corner where the U.S. Army turned left to respond to the shot that struck Leon Smith.
MODERN DAY: The southern edge of today’s U.S. Post Office sits on the approximate location of the Hospital building. A sidewalk has replaced the footpath from the fort down the hill. While the fort was originally built to the water’s edge, landfill has since expanded the coastline of Wrangell’s waterfront. Front Street follows the path of the historic Wrangell waterfront.
#2. Smith & Lear’s Store
(Wrangell Drug - 202 Front Street)
A photo of Leon Smith (foreground) taken during the U.S. Civil War, and Vincent Colyer’s illustration of Smith & Lear’s Store drawn in October 1869.
“[Smith] was pacing back and forth on his front porch, aimlessly. With his whistling, he knew how to whistle. What was he doing? Ok, [Scutdoo] took aim. The gun did not have a bullet in it. The ammunition used was shot. The one that is used for shooting ducks. Boom! He fell on the houses front porch. He shot him right in the stomach. It made the sound of crackling.”
1869: Leon Smith and his business partner, William King Lear, operated two buildings: a trading post and a bowling alley. In the night hours after Christmas Day, Leon Smith was shot and mortally wounded in front of his store by Scutdoo. Leon Smith lay bleeding on the ground in front of his store until he was discovered by Army soldiers who heard the shot.
MODERN DAY: Modern constructions have replaced Smith & Lear’s old log cabins, but the buildings are still used as stores. A narrow stretch of Lynch Street separates the buildings. The building where Leon Smith was shot is now Stikine Drug. In the past, the building was a U.S. Post Office and the Den O’ Sweets, a store operated by influential Wrangell philanthropist James Nolan. (To learn more about this location, read Shot In The Dark: Finding Smith & Lear’s Trading Post)
#3. Tamaree Home
(Vacant Lot - 170 Front Street)
Undated photo of the Tamaree house taken from Wrangell’s Front Street. (Photo courtesy Ben Paul).
“That’s the house that William Tamaree built for Tillie. They were married in 1904 with the approval of William Lewis Paul. He said that was alright. This is the house where the [shaman] necklace was returned to Tillie Paul.”
1869: William Tamaree was six years old when the Army bombed Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw, an event he remembered in vivid detail. Tamaree survived the bombardment to grow up in Wrangell. Around 1904, he married Tillie Paul-Tamaree and built a three-story house for her and the three daughters they produced.
MODERN DAY: The house was tragically destroyed in a fire many years ago. Today, the house is a vacant lot on Wrangell’s Front Street between Nic’s Place and Sweet Tides Bakery.
#4. Beginning of KaachXana.áakʼw
(Totem Park - 434 Front St.)
A colorized map of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw based off a hand-drawn map by George Thornton Emmons in the 1880s.
“[The village] is located on a tongue of land and cove in the northwest shore of Wrangel Island. On the opposite side of the cove or other horn of the Crescent, the United States post is established about eight hundred yards distant, with its guns commanding the village. There are thirty-two houses in the village, and when all are at home there are five hundred and eight inhabitants. Of these, one-hundred and fifty-nine are men, and three hundred and forty-nine are women and children.”
1869: Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw is the name for the Tlingit village wrapped inside Etolin Harbor. When the clans of Kaatsitl’aan relocated here in the 1830s, they took turns selecting areas to establish homes. The villagers constructed clan houses, totem poles, stored their boats, put up graves, and more along the water’s edge. The Kiks.ádi clan selected a spot along the coast to the north of the other clans, meaning they were typically the first group encountered by anyone approaching from the north.
MODERN DAY: The area of the Kiks.ádi is now Totem Park, a collection of totem poles from the Kiks.ádi and other clans from around Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw.
#5. Shakes Island
(Shakes Island Longhouse - Shakes Street)
An illustration of Shakes Island by Vincent Colyer during his October 1869 visit to Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw.
“...And after four shells had been fired, two bursting immediately in front of the houses, and two solid shots just through the house of the principal chief, Shakes, a flag of truce was seen approaching the post, and firing on my part ceased.”
1869: Shakes Island is the ancestral home of the Naan.yaa.áyi clan, whose hereditary headman is called Shakes. Shortly before the Army’s bombardment began on December 26, an intermediary named Kaacheinee walked from the fort to Shakes Island twice to deliver a message — a three-quarter mile trip by foot each way. On December 27, Lt. William Borrowe ordered exploding shells fired at Shakes’ house, leading to the Tlingit surrender. While Shakes led by consensus of other clan leaders, the Army expected him to act as a central executive.
MODERN DAY: Of all the places mentioned in the bombardment story, Shakes Island is most well-preserved. Today, as in the past, it is made an island by the high tide. A replica construction of a traditional Tlingit clan house sits in the center of Shakes Island and is open to visitors during select hours.
#6. Shakes Grave
(702 Case Avenue)
Shakes Grave as viewed from modern-day Case Avenue. (Photo by Jimmy Emerson, DVM)
“Now, Chief Shakes, who is the head chief, gets mad. He rushes to Towatt’s house. He says, ‘Towatt, we are going to the fort. We will talk to the white chief. The soldiers have killed two of our men. We have killed one of theirs. We will take one soldier and we will kill him and then everything will be even.’ Shakes was plenty mad.”
1869: Perhaps none of the men who served as Shakes saw more change that Kaawishté. As a young man, he lived through the arrival of Russian fur traders, which led to the relocation of the village to the current site of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. Kaawishté saw the Hudson Bay Company, deadly epidemics, and the 1861 Gold Rush before the U.S. Army arrived in 1868. During the bombardment, he repeatedly defied the U.S. Army during face-to-face confrontations.
MODERN DAY: When Shakes died in 1878, Christian missionaries encouraged the Tlingit to abandon ceremonial cremation and adopt burial, thus creating Shakes Grave today along Case Avenue, directly east of the Wrangell Boatshop. (Read more on our blog: Shakes Grave)
#7. Escape Route
(City Light Plant - 1043 Case Ave)
An illustration of the south end of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw made by Vincent Colyer in October 1869.
“At 12 o’clock no signs were made of any disposition on the part of the Indians to comply with my orders; but their intentions to fight were made evident by the numerous persons engaged in carrying their goods to what they considered places of safety.”
1869: Even before the Army began firing, villagers began evacuating women and children to the areas south of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw, beyond the reach of the Army’s cannons. Just as it had done to the Kake village ten months earlier, the Army’s cannons forced Tlingit to flee their homes in the winter cold.
MODERN DAY: The area of the Tlingit escape is around the site of the Wrangell City Light Plant, which sits along the final southern stretch of Case Avenue which leads up a hill to the Zimovia Highway.
#8. Shustack’s House
(Oil Tanks - 1422 Peninsula St)
Etolin Harbor in the foreground and the peninsula ending in Shustak’s Point in the background.
“[Scutdoo] is going to give himself up. He goes around to different houses of the villages. He says to his friends, ‘Let us smoke. I am going to die. I am going to give myself up to the soldiers.’ He goes to his brother-in-law Shustak’s house and he says, ‘Let us eat our last meal together. I want to eat here before I die.’ ”
1869: On December 27, after two nights of hiding in the woods, Scutdoo came down to Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw to survey the damage. Knowing his fate, he made a long, final farewell through the village until arriving at the end of the peninsula: Shustack’s Point. Shustack a was leader of the Taalkweidi clan. He invited Scutdoo in for his final meal.
MODERN DAY: Shustack’s house in long gone, but according to Clarence Andrews, “The house of Shustaks on the Point had disappeared, and huge oil tanks had taken their place.” These tall, cylindrical tanks are not accessible to the public but are clearly visible.
#9. Scutdoo Final Voyage
(Fish & Game Float to City Dock)
“Scutdoo eats a little salmon, then he smokes, then he gives his gun to his brother-in-law [Shustak] and takes a canoe and sets out across the bay for the fort. ‘I go to give myself up,’ he says. ‘If I do not give myself up you will all die.’ ”
1869: Following his final meal at Shustack’s house, Shustack provides a canoe and slaves to paddle Scutdoo across the mouth of Etolin Harbor to the site of Fort Wrangel. Upon arriving at Fort Wrangel, Scutdoo was immediately seized and placed under arrest by the U.S. Army.
MODERN DAY: There’s a dock near the end of Shustack’s Point, inside the breakwater, called the Fish & Game Float. From here, you can go across the mouth of the harbor to land at City Dark, around the area of the point where the fort sat.
More to Explore
Mount Dewey Overlook
Hike up the Mount Dewey Trail for a birds-eye view of the places mentioned in the bombardment story, including the area of the Tlingit resistance on December 26.
The Wrangell Museum
Visit the Wrangell Museum inside the Nolan Center to check out a model 12-pound howitzer, cannonballs, and a replica Army uniform.
If you’d like to learn more, check out our Bombardment of Wrangell page for more details, resources, and visuals.