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“All my life I can remember this house, from the time when I was a small child. It was then the store of the Russian-American Company and my father was a clerk brought here from Russia. Every day my mother would send me there to get our tea, sugar or other things. Finally I grew up and married, and as was the custom our wedding dance was in the store building, that was the center of life in Kodiak, and we had our dances and our social life in this place.”
Memories of an elderly Kodiak woman, as recorded by Nellie Erskine, 1920, Kodiak, Alaska
 Kodiak, 1850. The Magazin appears on the right-hand side behind the Russian-American Company flag. Courtesy Oregon Historical Society.
After the cession of Alaska from Russia to the United States in 1867, the old log building became the property of the San Fransisco-based Alaska Commercial Company (ACC). The ACC created living quarters for their superintendents in one portion of the building, while maintaining the functions of storehouse and public offices in the large front room. In 1911, ACC Kodiak station manager W.J. Erskine bought out the local inventory of his employer and turned the building into his family home.
In 1967, the Kodiak Historical Society initiated the task of renovating the building for use as a community Museum. Multiple layers of wallpaper were removed from the interior to expose the original spruce logs. The roof was replaced and a new electrical system and forced air furnaces were installed. The City of Kodiak assumed ownership of the building in 1972, and has operated the Baranov Museum in partnership with the Kodiak Historical Society ever since.
Today, the Russian American Magazin is the oldest building in the state of Alaska and the earliest documented log structure on the west coast.
Would you like to learn more about this remarkable structure? The Kodiak Historical Society has published a new history book titled A Legacy Built to Last: Kodiak’s Russian American Magazin.
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