On this day in 1812, Russians landed near the mouth of what is now called the Russian River. There they started the first Russian settlement in California.

Who, What, and Why. About 25 Russians and 80 Alaskans came ashore and set up a temporary camp. They built houses and a wooden stockade. Their goal: to hunt sea otters and grow crops for Russian settlements in Alaska.

I Think I'll Call It Fort Ross. The settlement became known as Fort Ross.

Back in Time. Originally the Russians travelled Alaska to hunt sea otters. But food sources in Alaska were limited to fish, and sea otters were becoming scarce. Finally, with some Aleuts, the Russians sailed down the West Coast of North America.

Not the Oregon Trail. They made stops along the way, building forts on the Oregon coast. The farthest south they traveled was the Sonoma Coast, 12 miles north of the Russian River, where they built Fort Ross.

Why Sea Otters? Sea otter pelts were very valuable; in those days a single prime otter pelt might bring $150, a huge sum at the time.

Otter-ed Out. The settlement harvested as many as one thousand otter pelts per month during the peak of the hunting. But by 1828 they had virtually wiped out the sea otter population there. In later years they took an average of 100 otter pelts a year.

Plant a Seed and Watch It Grow...? The Russians tried farming the land and establishing a self sufficient colony but were not successful. They abandoned Fort Ross in 1841.