Juneau, Joseph
Primary Name: Juneau, Joseph
Filed as: juneau_joseph
Also known as: Joe Juneau; Joseph “Joe” Juneau
Occupation / Association: Prospector; co-discoverer of gold at Juneau
Born: May 1836, Lower Canada (Quebec)
Died: January 1899, Dawson, Yukon Territory
Parents:
Spouse:
Children:
Associated places: Quebec, Canada; Schenectady, New York; Sitka, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Dawson, Yukon
Keywords: Joseph Juneau, Joe Juneau, Juneau Alaska founder, Juneau gold discovery 1880, Richard Harris, Chief Kowee, Silver Bow Basin, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine
Biography
Joseph “Joe” Juneau was one of the discoverers of gold in the Juneau area in 1880 and the man for whom the city of Juneau is named.
Juneau was born in May 1836 in Lower Canada (Quebec). As a young man he moved to the United States and worked as a miner and prospector throughout the American West.
In 1879, he joined Richard “Dick” Harris in prospecting for gold in southeastern Alaska for Sitka merchant George Pilz. Their guide in the region was Chief Kowee, who led them into the mountains behind Gastineau Channel.
In October 1880, Harris and Juneau discovered rich placer deposits in Silver Bow Basin. Within a short period, they staked claims on some of the richest ground in the basin, discoveries that eventually led to the development of the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mine.
The settlement that developed near the discovery was first called Harrisburg, then Pilzburg, and later Rockwell. In 1881, the miners voted to rename the town Juneau in honor of Joe Juneau.
Juneau later sold his interest in the mining claims and continued prospecting in other northern districts, eventually traveling to the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush.
He died in Dawson, Yukon Territory, in January 1899.
Sources
Alaska Consortium Library — Joseph Juneau Correspondence
Tags: Joseph Juneau, Joe Juneau, Juneau Alaska founder, Richard Harris, Chief Kowee, Silver Bow Basin discovery, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine
Afric, Anton
Primary Name: Africh, Antone
Filed as: africh_antone
Also known as: Anton Africh
Occupation / Association: Miner; Treadwell Mine; Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company
Born: January 29, 1877, Broud, Austria
Died: November 8, 1937, Juneau, Alaska
Parents: John Africh; Mary Gacgovich-Africh
Spouse: Mary Africh
Children: Mary Africh-Dauworth; Ruth Africh-Nelson; Stephena Africh
Associated places: Broud, Austria; Juneau, Alaska; Douglas Island; Treadwell
Keywords: Antone Africh, Anton Africh, Africh Antone, Africh family Juneau, Treadwell Mine miners, Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company
Tags: Antone Africh, Anton Africh, Africh family, Treadwell Mine miners, Juneau pioneers, Douglas Island residents
Biography
Antone Africh was born in Broud, Austria, on January 29, 1877, to John Africh and Mary Gacgovich-Africh. He was 5 feet 6½ inches tall, with a dark complexion and brown hair.
He was married to Mary Africh. They had three children, all born in Juneau: Mary Africh-Dauworth, Ruth Africh-Nelson, and Stephena Africh.
Africh worked as a miner at the Treadwell Mine and later for the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company.
He was a member of the Moose and Croatian lodges.
An advertisement in a local newspaper refers to the Africh & Africh store and residence, which he may have operated with his brother John.
Africh died on November 8, 1937, at St. Ann’s Hospital in Juneau at the age of 60, where he was treated by Dr. W. M. Whitehead for pulmonary tuberculosis. Charles W. Carter served as his undertaker.
Survey and Inventory of Douglas Historic Cemeteries, 1995
Sources
Find-A-Grave memorial; Survey and Inventory of Douglas Historic Cemeteries (1995); Juneau historical records
Douglas City Founded
When Dick Harris and Joe Juneau returned to Sitka with news of their find and the rush was on. Prospectors flocked to the area and began staking claims. A French Canadian by the name of French Pete Errusard learned of a gold bearing outcrop on Douglas Island across the Gastineau Channel from the new town of Juneau.
He staked adjacent claims in 1881 that were eventually sold along with others to John Treadwell, who was representing California investors. The mining town of Treadwell was soon established along with the town of Douglas City. Juneau and Douglas grew along with the mines as more people came to the area not only to mine but to start businesses.
Read moreKowee Cowee, Auk Bay Chief
Primary Name: Kow ee
Filed as: kow_ee
Also known as: Chief Kow ee; Kowee
Occupation / Association: Chief of the Auk Tlingit
Born:
Died:
Parents:
Spouse:
Children:
Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Silver Bow Basin, Alaska; Gold Creek, Alaska
Keywords: Kow ee, Chief Kow ee, Kowee, Auk Tlingit chief, discovery of Juneau gold, Silver Bow Basin discovery
Biography
Chief Kow ee of the Auk Tlingit was credited with guiding prospectors to the gold-bearing areas that led to the founding of Juneau.
When prospectors returned to Pilz empty-handed, Kow ee sent them back to the Juneau area to continue their search.
In October of 1880, Richard "Dick" Harris, with partner Joe Juneau, made one of the most significant discoveries of American prospecting.
Kow ee took them beyond Gold Creek to Silver Bow Basin, and within a two-week period, they discovered and staked some of the richest placer mines in the Silver Bow Basin, and, more importantly, the lode system that ultimately became the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mine, also known as the AJ Mine.
Sources
Juneau mining history records; Pioneers of Alaska historical records
Tags: Kow ee, Chief Kow ee, Kowee, Auk Tlingit leaders, Richard Dick Harris, Joe Juneau, Silver Bow Basin discovery, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine
Museth, Agnes E.
Primary Name: Museth, Agnes
Filed as: Museth, Agnes
Also known as: Agnes E. Museth
Occupation / Association: Stenographer, Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company; Charter Member, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women's Auxiliary No. 6
Associated places: Douglas, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Tacoma, Washington; Escondido, California; San Diego, California; Voss, Norway
Keywords: Agnes Museth Juneau Alaska, Museth family Douglas Alaska, Nora Alice Museth, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine employees, Douglas High School graduates Alaska, Norwegian immigrants Juneau Alaska, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women's Auxiliary charter members
Biography
Agnes Museth was a Charter Member of the Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Women’s Auxiliary No. 6. She was born May 29, 1892, in Michigan to Henry Museth and Martha Nilsdatter Bolstad Museth. Her parents had immigrated from Voss, Norway in 1881, and their family name was Americanized from Hendrik and Marta Mjaaset after their arrival in the United States.
Agnes came to Alaska with her family in June 1894 and grew up in Douglas. She graduated from Douglas High School in 1911 and later attended a one-year business college in Tacoma, Washington.
After completing her education, Museth began working as a stenographer for the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company.
In 1923, when her father became ill, Agnes moved with her parents and her sisters Nora and Trini to Escondido, California. She remained in California after her father’s death in 1926.
Agnes E. Museth died on December 18, 1977, in San Diego, California.
Sources
1900 U.S. Federal Census, Douglas, Alaska.
Gastineau Channel Memories, Volume 1, pp. 353–355.
California Death Index.
McKinnon Apartments
The MacKinnon Apartments is a historic apartment building at 236 Third Street. The building is a three-story wood-frame structure, finished in stucco with corner quoining and a dentillated cornice.
The MacKinnon Apartments provided modern housing in Alaska's capital and largest city, and is representative of the size and scale of the buildings constructed during the boom that occurred in Juneau during the 1920s.
When it opened in 1925, it was 80 feet (24 m) long and housed six single-bedroom and 12 studio apartments. In 1959, 20 feet (6.1 m) allowed five more studio units to be added. The building is representative of Juneau's boom years in the period between World Wars I and II, 1921 to 1939, which been defined as Juneau's Peak Gold Mining Era.
During that period, the town was the center for the territorial government, for the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Company's huge hard rock operations, for salmon and halibut commercial fishermen, and for supplying southeast Alaska.
Following placer gold discoveries in Silver Bow Basin in 1880, prospectors and businessmen established the town of Juneau. Within a decade, companies organized to mine the hard rock gold deposits in the area. Between 1880 and 1944, the three major mining companies in the Juneau area produced $158 million in gold. The Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company was the largest low grade ore gold producer in the world from 1910 to 1944.
Juneau quickly grew to be the largest community in southeast Alaska. In 1920, with a population of 3,058, it was the largest city in Alaska. The federal government designated Juneau the capital for the District of Alaska in 1900, although the move from Sitka was not made until 1906, and in 1912 designated it the capital for the Territory of Alaska.
After a cold storage plant opened in 1913, Juneau became the home port for a number of fishermen. The timber industry flourished with the building of a sawmill around 1910. Juneau became the regional trading center for communities in southeast Alaska. Steamships arrived and departed regularly.
In the summer months, steamships brought visitors to town. World War I created shortages of skilled labor to work in the mines and materials needed for mine operations. Production slowed. After the war, with new capital and improvements in technology, the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Company was profitable and expanding operations. As a result, the town prospered. Juneau business people invested in new, more substantial buildings. One of the new buildings was the three story MacKinnon Apartments.
Lauchlin "Lockie" MacKinnon, an immigrant from Nova Scotia, constructed the apartment building. He came to Alaska in 1886, MacKinnon drifted around mining camps in Alaska and the Yukon, working as a miner and businessman. For a few years in the 1890s he mined at Porcupine north of Haines. In 1893, he crossed the Chilkoot Trail to seek gold in the Fortymile.
Back in Juneau, in 1895 and 1896 he and George Miller, his partner at Porcupine, built and operated the Circle City Hotel on Third Street. The hotel had eighty rooms, a bar and dining room.
He married Martha Maline Lokke, who came to work at the hotel, in April 1896. The family continued to move around the north, spending several years at Atlin, B.C. and in the Fairbanks area, before settling in Juneau around 1911. Back in Juneau, MacKinnon managed the Zynda Hotel, later known as the Juneau Hotel, on Main Street.
In the 1920s, MacKinnon sensed that apartments were replacing boarding houses and hotels, and built the MacKinnon Apartments. He and his wife lived in an apartment in the building until their deaths in the late 1940s.
The MacKinnon Investment Company prospectus appeared August 17, 1925, seeking investors in a three-story frame apartment house to be located at the corner of Third and Franklin Streets.
An article in Stroller's Weekly, a local newspaper, dated October 10, 1925, noted that the new MacKinnon Apartments offered numerous modern conveniences. In particular, the article said the builder wired each apartment for electricity.
After his second term as territorial governor ended in 1933, George Parks lived in the MacKinnon Apartments for three years. The building has been continuously used as an apartment house since construction.
Sons J. Simpson MacKinnon and Donald L. MacKinnon operated the apartment house after their parents' deaths. In 1959, perhaps anticipating the increased need for housing in the new state's capital, they added five studio units to the back of the building. Other than this addition, the building has not been significantly changed since its construction.
The apartment building is located two blocks outside of the Juneau Downtown Historic District, which were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The McKinnon Apartments were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
Zenger, Al
Zenger family portrait, Juneau, Alaska. Sebastian, Carrie, and Alfred Zenger Sr. and family, 1941.
Primary Name: Zenger, Al
Filed as: Zenger, Al
Also known as: Alfred Zenger Sr.; Al Zenger Sr.
Occupation / Association: President, Juneau Men's Igloo; cigar manufacturer; accountant; Alaska Juneau Gold Mine employee; U.S. Navy Reserve veteran
Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Douglas, Alaska; Seattle, Washington; Sutton, Alaska; Tenakee, Alaska; Sitka, Alaska; Point Louisa, Alaska; Cook Inlet, Alaska; Dyea, Alaska
Keywords: Zenger family, Alfred Zenger Sr., Sebastian B. Zenger, Juneau pioneers, early Juneau families, Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Men's Igloo, cigar manufacturing in Alaska, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine, U.S. Navy Reserve, Dyea Trail, Klondike era settlers, Alaska territorial history
Biography
Alfred “Al” Zenger Sr. was an early Juneau resident, businessman, veteran, and community leader who served as President of the Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Men’s Igloo in 1948. He was the son of Sebastian B. Zenger, a Bavarian immigrant whose family became part of the fabric of early Juneau civic and commercial life.
Sebastian B. Zenger was born on March 18, 1862, in Kallmuenz, Bavaria. He immigrated to the United States when he was nineteen years old. He first came to Alaska in 1896, going to the Cook Inlet district. When the stampede to the Klondike began in 1897, he went to Dyea, where he packed for wages on the Dyea Trail in 1897 and 1898. He left Seattle in 1897 by steamship for Juneau in search of work. In October 1898, Sebastian moved his wife, Carrie, and children, Bertha, Alfred Sr., Theresa, and Hilda, to Juneau, where he was employed as a carpenter.
Through family friends, a romance blossomed between Sebastian’s eldest daughter, Bertha, and Joseph Trudgeon, a young merchant and co-owner of a dairy farm in Douglas. Joseph was born in 1879 in Quebec, England, to Joseph Trudgeon and Josepiah Ruth Haydon. Bertha and Joseph were married in Douglas in 1906.
In Juneau, the Zenger family resided for nearly a decade, from about 1910, on the second floor of a two-story wooden-frame building at the southwest corner of Third and Main Streets. The first floor was occupied by the manufacture of cigars. That structure later had a colorful history, serving at different times as a dance hall and later as a church space. It housed the Resurrection Lutheran Church from the 1930s to the mid-1950s, when a new church building was constructed at Glacier Avenue and 10th Street. In the 1960s, the building was razed to widen Main Street.
Sebastian and his son Alfred manufactured a variety of cigars in Juneau. The basswood molds used in that work were reportedly burned as firewood sometime in 1932, though by the 1990s, such molds had become desirable antique items. Tobacco for the manufacture of handmade cigars arrived in hogsheads by steamboat. Ships usually made monthly, and later biweekly, runs through Southeast Alaska before returning to Seattle. These vessels were the lifelines of the communities for every need. Livestock arrived alive and were slaughtered on the dock as needed, and butter was shipped in kegs packed in salt brine because ships of that era lacked refrigeration.
In the early summer of 1910, Sebastian sent his son Alfred to check on a mining venture in which he had invested at Sutton in the Matanuska Valley. Alfred departed Juneau aboard the steamer Star of Seattle. While on the Gulf of Alaska, a storm raged so severely that he saw the same point of land for three consecutive days. Upon arrival at Portage on the Kenai Peninsula, he hiked over the portage to the head of Cook Inlet, where Anchorage now stands. At that time, there was only one cabin on the beach. Throughout their lives, Sebastian and Alfred became involved in various ventures in hopes of striking it rich, grubstaking, or putting up venture capital for assorted enterprises.
About 1914, a romance flourished between Theresa Zenger and Hubert C. Huehn, a linotype operator for the Daily Dispatch. Hubert was the son of John Esch Huehn and Amelia Lundy, born in 1890 in Morden, Manitoba, Canada. Theresa and Hubert were married in Douglas in 1914 and later moved to California.
In 1916, Sebastian’s youngest daughter, Hilda, married Eugene Allen Rowe, the son of Richard Valentine Rowe and Maria Z. Miller. Eugene was born in 1894 in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. In 1919, that couple moved to Seattle.
During World War I, Alfred enlisted in the Navy Reserve in Seattle in 1917 and attended the first U.S. Navy class in radio-telephone at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Upon graduation, he was assigned to the Naval Training Center in Seattle to teach radio-telephone operations. He was released from active duty in 1918 and discharged from the Naval Reserve in 1921.
While on active duty with the Navy in Seattle, Alfred met Silva Ann Redman through relatives. She was born in 1898 in Seattle, King County, Washington, the ninth of ten children of John David and Emilia Redman. The couple married in Seattle in 1919. Shortly after the wedding, they left for Juneau, honeymooning at Tenakee and Sitka.
According to the 1920 census, no Zengers were residing in Juneau, suggesting a division in the family between those who wished to remain stateside in Seattle and those who desired to remain in Juneau. In early 1920, Sebastian again took up residence in Juneau at 121 West Fourth Street at the corner of Calhoun Avenue. Alfred and Silva resided in a small apartment upstairs. During the early 1920s, Sebastian opened and operated a curio shop on South Franklin Street, continuing until his death in 1932. After spending the summer of 1932 at the family’s cabin near Point Louisa, approximately sixteen miles from Juneau, the family again took up residence in the grandfather’s home on Calhoun Avenue.
As the territorial government expanded, the demand for office space in Juneau increased. The City of Juneau gave land for an office building on the site of the city hall and the old Arctic Brotherhood Building. The new structure was to face Main Street between Third and Fourth Streets. Alfred and Silva were not pleased by the prospect of a four- or five-story office building being erected next to their home. During excavation, blasting by the contractor’s powder man damaged the Zenger residence, the Cooper Building, and automobiles across Main Street. Damages were repaired, and the house remained in the Zenger family possession until 1965.
Alfred and Silva remained in Juneau, where their children were born: Alfred Jr. in 1920, Harold in 1922, Ned in 1925, and Chester in 1927. Alfred Sr. worked at various times as a cigar maker in Seattle and Juneau. He also found employment at the Alaska Juneau Gold Mine as a flume keeper. After taking correspondence courses to become an accountant, he worked for the Sanitary Grocery on Front Street, Connors Motor on South Franklin Street, and Empire Printing Company on Main and Second Streets. In 1950, he traveled to Germany to visit his family. Upon his return to Juneau, he obtained temporary employment with the Veterans Administration and later with the Department of Alaska American Legion. He held these positions at the time of his death in Juneau in 1954. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in the American Legion Plot.
After Alfred Sr.’s death, Silva married Robert H. Hanson in 1962 in Fall City, Washington, where they resided. She died in Kirkland, Washington, in 1992.
Later family notes record that Alfred Jr. resided in Florida, Ned lived in Idaho, Chester died in 1999, and Harold died in May 2001.
Through his work, family ties, military service, and leadership in the Pioneers of Alaska, Alfred Zenger Sr. is part of the larger story of early Juneau families who helped shape the city's commercial, social, and fraternal life.
Sources
- Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Men’s Igloo records
- Zenger family historical narrative
- Juneau historical records
Gray, Jetta
Primary Name: Gray, Jetta Hamilton
Filed as: gray_jetta_hamilton
Also known as: Jetta Hamilton Gray, Jetta Gray
Occupation / Association: President (1952), Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women’s Igloo No. 6; buyer, B.M. Behrends Co.; Red Cross volunteer
Born: June 4, 1886, Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland
Died: November 29, 1959, Juneau, Alaska
Parents:
Spouse: Felix Gray (m. November 29, 1905)
Children: William Gordon Gray; Hugh Douglas Gray
Associated places: Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland; Miles City, Montana; Juneau, Alaska; Douglas, Alaska
Keywords: Jetta Hamilton Gray, Jetta Gray, Gray Jetta Hamilton, Juneau Women’s Igloo No 6 President 1952, B M Behrends Company buyer
Biography
Jetta Hamilton Gray served as President of the Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Women’s Igloo No. 6 in 1952.
Jetta Hamilton was born on June 4, 1886, at Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. In the spring of 1900, she came with her parents from Scotland to Montana.
She married Felix Gray on November 29, 1905, at Miles City, Montana. “Many young men came around,” she said, “but he was the best.” Two sons, William Gordon and Hugh Douglas, were born to them in Montana, where the family operated a cattle ranch.
In 1911, Mr. Gray traveled to Juneau, liked the community, and sent for his wife and children. They arrived on March 17 the following year. “The second greatest day of my life,” Mrs. Gray said, amending an earlier statement so that the greatest day remained November 29, 1905, the date of her marriage.
Felix Gray worked for the Alaska Treadwell Mine until it closed and later became a bookkeeper for the Alaska-Juneau Mine. He served as City Clerk of Douglas from 1923 until 1936 in addition to his regular employment, and later served as a United States Commissioner from 1936 until his retirement in 1949.
After her children finished school, Mrs. Gray became a buyer in the ladies’ department at B. M. Behrends Company in Juneau in June. She remained with the store from 1930 until 1939 and made frequent trips outside the territory in connection with her work. In 1939, she volunteered for the Red Cross.
Reflecting on their years in Southeast Alaska, the Grays recalled watching the town grow and witnessing many notable developments, including the opening of the bridge and the completion of the Federal Building. They also remembered the fires that struck Douglas, which fortunately spared their home.
Jetta Hamilton Gray died in Juneau, Alaska, on November 29, 1959. She was survived by her husband, her two sons, William Gordon Gray and Hugh Douglas Gray, and two sisters, Mrs. Mary Holbrook and Mrs. Madge Woolsey of Montana.
Sources
Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Vol. 4, Ed Ferrell
Lundstrom, Alfred Eugene
Primary Name: Lundstrom, Alfred Eugene
Filed as: lundstrom_alfred_eugene
Also known as: Alfred E. Lundstrom; Alfred Lundstrom
Occupation / Association: President, Juneau Men’s Igloo (1934); carpenter; Alaska Juneau Gold Mine worker
Born: April 27, 1877, Tornio, Finland
Died: March 10, 1963, Juneau, Alaska
Parents:
Spouse: May Maki
Children: Gust Lundstrom; Daisy Hazel Lundstrom; Della Marie Lundstrom; Dora Mathilda Lundstrom; Alfred Lundstrom Jr.; Irene Lundstrom
Associated places: Tornio, Finland; Minnesota; Virginia, Minnesota; Biwabik, Minnesota; Juneau, Alaska; Douglas, Alaska; Excursion Inlet, Alaska
Keywords: Alfred Eugene Lundstrom, Alfred E Lundstrom, Juneau Men’s Igloo President 1934, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine carpenter, May Maki Lundstrom, Dora Mathilda Lundstrom, Irene Lundstrom, Excursion Inlet cannery workers
Biography
Alfred Eugene Lundstrom served as President of the Juneau Men’s Igloo in 1934.
Lundstrom was born on April 27, 1877, in Tornio, Finland. He immigrated to Minnesota in 1892 and later married May Maki in 1898.
Their children included Gust Lundstrom, born in 1900; Daisy Hazel Lundstrom, born February 1, 1901, in Virginia, Minnesota; and Della Marie Lundstrom, born July 19, 1905. Their daughter Dora Mathilda Lundstrom, who later served as President of the Women’s Igloo in 1953, was born June 19, 1907, in Biwabik, Minnesota.
The family moved from Minnesota to Juneau around 1908. Their son, Alfred Lundstrom Jr., was born in Douglas on October 10, 1908, and their daughter, Irene Lundstrom, who later served as Women’s Igloo President in 1950, was born in Douglas on January 10, 1910.
During the summer months, the family worked at canneries or cold-storage facilities in Excursion Inlet. Lundstrom worked as a carpenter for the Alaska Juneau Gold Mine and built several homes in downtown Juneau.
Alfred Eugene Lundstrom died in Juneau on March 10, 1963.
Sources
Pioneers of Alaska Men’s Igloo 6 Biographical Sketch
Tags: Alfred Eugene Lundstrom, Alfred E Lundstrom, Lundstrom Alfred, Juneau Men’s Igloo President 1934, May Maki Lundstrom, Dora Mathilda Lundstrom, Irene Lundstrom, Alaska Juneau Gold Mine, Excursion Inlet cannery workers
Harkrader, George
Primary Name: Harkrader, George
Filed as: george_harkrader
Also known as: George Harkrader
Occupation / Association: Miner; Prospector; Charter Member, Juneau Men's Igloo No. 6
Born: May 29, 1847, Warren County, Ohio
Died: 1915
Parents:
Spouse:
Children:
Associated places: Warren County, Ohio; Sitka, Alaska; Fort Wrangell, Alaska; Cassiar District; Juneau, Alaska; Mount Roberts; Silver Bow Basin; Admiralty Island; Chatham Strait; Killisnoo; Telephone Hill, Juneau
Property / Address: Lots 5, 6, and 7, west slope of Telephone Hill, Juneau, Alaska
Keywords: George Harkrader, Harkrader George, Juneau Men's Igloo No. 6, Telephone Hill property owners, Mount Roberts mining claims, Silver Bow Basin miners, Alaska Juneau Mine early claims
Biography
George Harkrader was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo No. 6 of the Pioneers of Alaska.
Harkrader was born on May 29, 1847, in Warren County, Ohio. He came to Alaska in the early mining era and traveled through Sitka, Fort Wrangell, and the Cassiar mining district before arriving in Juneau in April 1881.
In December 1880, Harkrader staked a lode claim on Mount Roberts, as well as a quartz claim in Silver Bow Basin and a hillside placer claim. These claims were located in the area later developed as the Alaska-Juneau Mine, also known as the Little Treadwell (DeArmond 1967; Alaska Monthly 1907).
Harkrader was a mining partner of Henry Coons and Dan Campbell for six years, and together they recovered more than $75,000 from their placer operations. He was also among the original owners in the Nevada Creek district, held quartz mining property on Admiralty Island, and invested considerable money in developing a coal property on Chatham Strait near Killisnoo.
The 1894 plat map of the Juneau townsite shows Harkrader owning Lots 5, 6, and 7 on the west slope of the Telephone Hill Historic Neighborhood. City tax rolls indicate that Harkrader and, later, his estate owned the property until 1920.
The 1914 Sanborn map shows a residence, possibly Harkrader's home, located on the north half of Lots 5, 6, and 7 next to the West Second Street right-of-way (Hurley 1983). The structure was removed in the mid-1930s. The Ralph Martin House at 128 Dixon Street was later constructed on these lots.
Prior to his death in 1915, Harkrader ran unsuccessfully for the Juneau City Council as a Socialist.
Sources
Alaska Monthly Magazine, Oct-Nov 1907; Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 1, p. 130, Ed Ferrell (May 1, 2009); Hurley 1983
Telephone Hill Historic Site and Structures Survey
Tags: George Harkrader, Harkrader George, Juneau Men's Igloo No. 6, Telephone Hill residents, Mount Roberts miners, Silver Bow Basin pioneers, Admiralty Island mining