Rotting and crumbling, Fort Vancouver burned to the ground in 1866. When the British pulled out in 1860, they left the fort in American hands. Never fans of the British, the American military neglected its maintenance. Very likely, the derelict fort stood out as an eyesore next to the well-maintained Vancouver Barracks. Whether the fire was set by accident or on purpose remains a mystery.
In time, the community forgot the exact site of the fort. Then in 1921, after 15 years of searching, C Street resident Felix Robinson, a civil engineer just reassigned to Fort Lewis, was clearing out old papers in his office. He found a yellowed bit of tracing linen bearing the name Lt. Col. Benjamin L.E. Bonneville, who commanded the fort from 1853 to 1855. The rediscovered map was Bonneville’s site survey and revealed the fort’s location.
As the mid-1920s drew near and the 100th anniversary of the fort approached, enthusiasm increased for restoring the fort. In March 1925, the front page of The Columbian displayed a photo of four men examining restoration plans for the stockade. One was Glenn Ranck, a 1917 founding member and then president of the Fort Vancouver Historical Society (now the Clark County Historical Society).
Archaeological digging between 1947 and 1952 determined where a reconstructed fort would stand, and artifacts gave some inkling of the lives Hudson’s Bay Company employees led there. Stockade and building reconstruction started in the early 1970s and continues today. But, at the time, archaeologists didn’t realize they were investigating the fort’s second location. (The original site was near the Washington State School for the Deaf, and recent diggings have uncovered parts of it.)
