Reader Mail: The Fort Wrangel Opera House
“Hi Ronan,
Say, I was wondering if you’ve ever run across anything about the Wrangel Opera House? Years ago when renovating a home built in 1898 I came upon 5-6 Wrangel Opera House Tickets.
The tickets are a heavy cardboard ticket, colored yellow. They look a bit fancy. I looked through old museum catalogs back in the day to find something more about it, but I never did find out where it was, or when it operated.
Cheers,
Liz Buness”
Hey Liz,
Cool discovery! You never know what you’ll find under the floorboards. It’s amazing that you found these tickets at all, because the history of the Fort Wrangel Opera House is extremely short. The Fort Wrangel Opera House opened in 1898, the same year as the beginning of the Klondike Gold Rush. The Stikeen River Journal of April 23, 1898 announced:
“H.E. Powell and his associates deserve the thanks of the community for their establishment of such a place of amusement as the new Fort Wrangel Opera House has proven to be.
The spirit of enterprise shown by these gentlemen has been duly appreciated as the seating capacity of the house was taxed on the opening night and good houses have been the rule the entire week.
Many of the specialities of the performance are far above the average and the entire bill might creditably be produced in a town of much larger pretensions. It is understood that there will be a change of bill weekly, and as the season advances new attractions will be added from time to time.”
The Stikeen River Journal described the opera house as “a fine building” 110 feet long by 60 feet wide and 36 feet to the roof. The stage was 24 feet wide, 18 feet deep, and featured a drop curtain and painted scenery.
Cows graze and debris litters the walkway of what is today Wrangell’s Front Street. Circled in red is a sign pointing visitors to the direction of the Fort Wrangel Opera House. (photo credit: Wrangell Museum, via Images of America: Wrangell by Bonnie Demerjian).
Fort Wrangel wasn’t alone. Towns of the Klondike Gold Rush saw opera houses crop up as local populations boomed. As historian Michael R. Booth wrote in The Beaver magazine:
“When miners streamed northwards in their thousands at the end of the nineteenth century, seeking fresh goldfields in Alaska and the Yukon, they immediately built theaters and opera houses of the kind found all over the American and Canadian West since the California gold strike of fifty years before. The link between mining and the theatre was thus an old one, but theatrical history never had a more colorful and garish chapter than the story of the Klondike theater during the great rush of 1898... ”
Journalist Julius M. Price visited the Fort Wrangel Opera House in 1898 and published this account:
“Still, Wrangel was not without its amusing side, as we found out when we visited its ‘Opera House’—a canvas-covered frame-shanty in a back block, and where a sort of music-hall entertainment was in progress. The place was constructed with ‘boxes’ on the upper floor, where between the turns, the fair (or otherwise) ‘artistes’ congregated.
Our appearance created no little commotion amongst them, for it was evidently regarded as an influx of business, and we were immediately escorted to the ‘best box’ by quite a bevy of songstresses and dancers of various ages, though mostly on the shady side of thirty. The ladies at these shows get a percentage on all drinks sold through their endeavors, so it may be imagined we were not suffering from thirst whilst in the establishment.
The appearance of the auditorium certainly did not recall memories of anything one had seen anywhere before. It was evidently not a ‘big night,’ for the audience was not a full one, and several gentlemen in the stalls were lying fast asleep full length on the floor, whilst others in the boxes sat in their shirt-sleeves and with their legs dangling over the edge...
There was no attempt at scenery, and the performances were particularly feeble, so we soon tired of it, in spite of the blandishments of the fair houris surrounding us, and made our way back...”
The Fort Wrangel Opera House served as a gathering space not just for itinerant gold-miners, but for longtime locals, as well. The venue hosted traveling preachers, benefits, celebrations, and plenty of dances. Two social clubs found home inside the opera house: the Twenty-Five Thousand Club believed that Fort Wrangel’s resources would allow the town to grow a population of 25,000 inhabitants, and the Bachelor’s Club served as a social club for the town’s unmarried men.
In May 1899, as the second year of the Klondike Gold entered full swing, the U.S. Army replaced the troops stationed in Fort Wrangel with Company L, 24th Infantry — a detachment of African-American service members known through history as the “Buffalo Soldiers.” That month, Stikeen River Journal reported that members of the infantry performed “Negro melodies, song and dance scenes, a cake walk and a sparring exhibition” followed by a dance at the Fort Wrangel Opera House. Said the paper, “The House as packed and everyone present enjoyed themselves to the fullest extent. Great pressure is being brought to bear to induce the boys to repeat the performance at an early date.”
But the Klondike Gold Rush would be short-lived, especially in Fort Wrangel. Gold-miners soon discovered that the route through Fort Wrangel was among the worst ways to reach the Klondike. By the end of 1899, both Stikeen River Journal and Fort Wrangel News ceased publication. All mentions of the Fort Wrangel Opera House disappear until February 16, 1905, when Wrangell’s new newspaper, the Alaska Sentinel, posted a notice to delinquent property owners to pay their taxes. Among the property owners listed was C.P. Cole for “opera house on Church street, possessory rights to the location of the same.” This is the last mention of any kind of opera house in Wrangell’s historic newspapers.
The lasting legacy of the Fort Wrangel Opera House may be that it was a sign of things to come. Wrangell has always needed gathering spaces. Just like the Nolan Center, the American Legion Hall, or any of Wrangell’s gymnasiums, the Fort Wrangel Opera House served as a place where people could come together to talk, listen, celebrate, and more.
Have a question? Send an email to wrangellpod@gmail.com. If I can answer your question, it may wind up here!