Nearly A Third Of This Whole
Number Set Out From Here In The Month Of February, Traveling On The
Stickeen River, Which Usually Remains Safely Frozen Until Toward The
End Of April.
The main body of the miners, however, went up on the
steamers in May and June.
On account of the severe winters they were
all compelled to leave the mines the end of September. Perhaps about
two thirds of them passed the winter in Portland and Victoria and the
towns of Puget Sound. The rest remained here in Wrangell, dozing away
the long winter as best they could.
Indians, mostly of the Stickeen tribe, occupied the two ends of
the town, the whites, of whom there were about forty or fifty, the
middle portion; but there was no determinate line of demarcation, the
dwellings of the Indians being mostly as large and solidly built of
logs and planks as those of the whites. Some of them were adorned
with tall totem poles.
The fort was a quadrangular stockade with a dozen block and frame
buildings located upon rising ground just back of the business part
of the town. It was built by our Government shortly after the
purchase of Alaska, and was abandoned in 1872, reoccupied by the
military in 1875, and finally abandoned and sold to private parties
in 1877. In the fort and about it there were a few good, clean homes,
which shone all the more brightly in their sombre surroundings. The
ground occupied by the fort, by being carefully leveled and drained,
was dry, though formerly a portion of the general swamp, showing how
easily the whole town could have been improved.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 27 of 316
Words from 7129 to 7406
of 85542
