Built high on a grassy promontory above a sheltered cover, Fort Ross reigned as Russian's easternmost outposts for nearly three decades after its founding in 1812. Russian and Aleut colonists hunted sea otters for the pelts and farmed to support Alaskan colonies. The stockaded fort was abandoned after the sea-otter population collapsed in the mid-1830s. Deeded to the State of California in 1906, it has been partially restored with an Orthodox chapel, officials' quarters and two blockhouses.