• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Vintage American

Postcard art sharing fun, beautiful and entertaining images of early 1900s America

  • Home
  • Currier and Ives
  • Holidays
  • Types
  • States
  • Blog
  • Store
Vintage American State / Area Alaska Vintage Alaska Postcard of Wrangell Bay
Vintage Alaska Postcard

Vintage Alaska Postcard of Wrangell Bay

Last Modified: June 10, 2018

Wrangell, Alaska is noted for its wonderful evenings and sunsets. This photo for this vintage postcard was taken at 10:15 PM, circa 1930’s. The original postcard is dated July, 1935 and was sold by the Bear Totem Store in Wrangell.

Before Alaska was part of the United States, it was Russian territory. The Russians were trading for furs and other goods with the Tlingit tribe at and near Wrangell in the 1800s. Baron Wrangel was head of the Russian government in what is now Alaska. He had a fort built at Wrangell which was later used by the Hudson’s Bay Company and named Fort Stikine under British rule.  Once the U.S. purchased Alaska, this fort became Fort Wrangell and was used until 1877 by the military. After that, with the gold rush in full force it became a trading post once again.

Map of Alaska showing WrangellThe town of Wrangell, one of the oldest non-Native settlements in Alaska, is located along the “Inside Passage,” or the Alaskan Panhandle, on the northern tip of Wrangell Island. It is across from the mouth of the Stikine River on the Alaska mainland. The town and the island are both named after Baron Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel. (See the black circle on the map.)

The Bear Totem Store, where this postcard was sold, was built in the 1920s by Walter Waters. According to town history this store sold Tlingit arts and crafts, including a number of irreplaceable totem poles. Before opening the store, Waters carried the mail by boat from Wrangell to other parts of the Alaskan Panhandle. In his travels and work along the coast of Alaska, Waters met many of the Tlingit tribe trading for furs and purchasing artwork from them to finally allow him to open his store. Unfortunately, a fire in the 1950’s burned the store down along with much of the downtown Wrangell business area. This fire changed the look of Wrangell as many of the historic buildings were lost. You can read more of the history of Wrangell from their own town history site.

Chief Shakes HouseThis is the clan house of Chief Shakes, called Shéiksh Hídi, of the Tlingit tribe. This house was located about 13 miles (21 km) north of Old Wrangell, on a small island in the middle of what is today Wrangell Harbor.

One of the more beautiful aspects of the Tlingit tribe is that each clan of the tribe has a wonderful and unique creation story that has survived contact with Europeans and Americans. Each clan has their own story that is private to the clan and explains their origins through the stories of ancestors. The Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN) shows the Tlingit tribal list of clans and maps of clan locations.

There is a wonderful story of children playing sandlot ball in Alaska by Josh Miller, of the Tlingit tribe, in the book Sandlot Stories. ARose Books was very proud to get Josh’s story as he is a fine writer with a great future. He was staying in Incline Village, NV at the time that Sandlot Stories was produced, having been sent to college in Lake Tahoe by the Tlingit tribe so that he could study writing.

The Stikine River is featured in one of the scenes of pursuit after the owner of the golden snare in James Oliver Curwood’s book, The Golden Snare.

To a get a great feeling of what it was like to sail through Wrangell bay in 1910, read The Alaskan, by James Oliver Curwood, a story of the fight to save and use Alaska’s precious resources properly amidst the greed and political corruption at that time. The story starts with the main characters sailing through the bay in the early 1900s to their destinations in Alaska. Either of these books will give you a good idea of what that part of the country was like in 1910, not long before this card was made.

Filed Under: Alaska, Beaches and Coasts Tagged With: Alaska, alaska postcards, James Oliver Curwood, vintage postcards, wrangell bay

Vintage American State / Area Alaska Vintage Alaska Postcard of Wrangell Bay

Primary Sidebar

Our Products

Little Black Bird Puzzle
Little Black Bird Puzzle
Spring Flowers Tote Bag
Spring Flowers Tote Bag
Southern Belle Vintage Postcard
Southern Belle Vintage Postcard
See More

Recent Posts

  • The Last Supper
  • Greetings From Florida
  • Starry Halloween Night
  • Girl With Candle
  • Unique Neck Ties – Get Fun and Vintage Inspired Ties

Tags

California california postcards Christian postcard Christmas postcard city streets postcards Colorado Colorado postcards Currier and Ives Easter chick postcard Easter postcard Ellen Clapsaddle flowers Fourth of July Fourth of July postcard Halloween postcard holiday postcard Independence Day postcard lithograph reprint locomotive Memorial Day Nevada New York New York postcard Niagara Falls Niagara Falls postcard old locomotives old postcards old train postcard patriotic postcard Pennsylvania Pennsylvania postcard Pittsburgh postcard railroads Rocky Mountains St. Patrick's Day postcard State History trains valentine love valentine postcards Victorian children postcard vintage postcards Washington DC waterfalls winter postcards

Footer

  • Owned by ARose Books
  • Our Printer
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map
  • Cookie Policy (US)

Copyright © 2007–2025 Vintage American

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}