Wrangell Institute

The Wrangell Institute was Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school in Wrangell, Alaska. It operated from 1932 until closing in 1975. It began as a high school, and in 1947 it converted to an elementary school.

This website contains links to areas of interest for researchers. All sources are free to view online. If you have any resources related to the Wrangell Institute that you’d like to share, please get in touch!

The Buildings

The Wrangell Institute was designed by architect N. Lester Troast, a former teacher at Sheldon Jackson College boarding school. He designed the buildings in a style popular in the 1930s, called Colonial Revival Architecture. The buildings featured symmetry, rows of equally spaced windows, entrances in the center, and few embellishments. Other buildings served as homes for teachers, staff, and facilities. (According to records in the U.S. National Archives, the photos below were taken in 1938 and 1949.)

Enrollment

Enrollment. This chart of the Annual Enrollment of the Wrangell Institute is a work-in-progress. I relied upon multiple sources to put it together, and I still came up short. 1951 and 1952 are missing. I’m sure they’re out there. Get in touch if you have those years!

Index of Student Names who attended Wrangell Institute] Student Case Files, 1933–1975. This collection of nearly 3,000 names is provided by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Head Administrators (Work in Progress)

The Rise of Indian Boarding Schools in Alaska

Alaska’s first Indian boarding school under the United States began in Fort Wrangel. In 1878, Presbyterian missionary Amanda R. McFarland converted a day-school into a boarding school for Tlingit girls. Other mission schools soon followed. Fort Wrangel’s school evolved into the Tlingit Training Academy which operated for several years in the 1880s.

Federal Indian Boarding Schools in Alaska by Year of Operation. I constructed this chart based off a list of boarding schools identified by the BIA as being operated or funded by the U.S. government. I used the Years of Operation as described in the BIA report, but it’s possible that some years might need adjustment. Help to improve this chart by sharing what you know.

With limited education options in Alaska, many Indigenous teenagers and young adults of this era attended boarding schools outside of Alaska, in places like Forest Grove, Chemawa, Haskell, and Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Wrangell Institute High School
(1932 - 1947)

The Wrangell Institute began operations in the fall of 1932. Less than 10 staff members worked with a student population averaging around 60 pupils. Most of the students were Indigenous teens from southeast Alaska.

Yearbooks: ‘33 | ‘34 | ‘35 | ‘36 | ‘37 | ‘38 | ‘39 | ’40 | ‘41 | ‘42 | ‘43 | ‘44 | ‘45 | ‘46 | ‘47

Annual Reports: 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937

1936: A Study of Indian Housing Conditions of Wrangell Institute Students to Determine the Type of Home Management House Needed, by Clara Mann

1942 UnangaX (Aleut) Evacuation

In 1942, as the United States battled Japan in the Pacific , the U.S. Army forcibly evacuated the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, the Unangax. The Army deposited many evacuees at the Wrangell Institute, housing them in tents. While some of the evacuees enrolled in the school, most were sent to an abandoned cannery at Burnett Inlet where conditions were extremely harsh.

Learn more about the Unangax Evacuation:

National Park Service: World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 5: Wrangell Institute, by Charles Mobley

One Year Podcast: 1942, When Internment Came to Alaska

When the Wind was a River, by Dean Kohlhoff

With WWII over, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) acquired the military’s abandoned airbase at Mt. Edgecumbe. In 1947, the BIA quickly transferred the students to Mt. Edgecumbe, which still operates to this day.

Reflections On the Institute

The Wrangell Institute ceased operations in 1975. In recent decades, the legacy of the school has become controversial as former students describe psychological, physical, and sexual abuse while at the school.

1977: Law and Alaska Native Education: The Influence of Federal and State Legislation upon Education of Rural Alaska Natives, by David H. Getches

2001: A History of Schooling for Alaska Native People, by Carol Barnhardt

2003: Wrangell Institute: Legacy of Shame ( Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) This powerful series won the National Journalism Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation. Rhonda McBride of KTUU visited Wrangell for sit-down interviews with former Institute students and staff to talk about the legacy of the school.

2005: Thirty Years later: The Long-Term Effect of Boarding Schools on Alaska Natives and their Communities, by Diane Hirshberg and Suzanne Sharp

2007: National Resource Center for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Elders Boarding School Project: Mental Health Outcome

2008: Alaska Native Education, 1953-1973, A Professional Memoir, by Tom (Thomas) R. Hopkins

2017: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: A Needed Force in Alaska? by Heather Parker

2008: “It was bad or it was good:” Alaska Natives in Past Boarding Schools

2022: Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report