William Nelson possessed the site of the Anita Kodzoff House, a duplex, which sits at 107 West First Street on the southeast face of Telephone Hill, sometime between 1885 and 1895.

Telephone Hill Historic Site and Structures Survey, 1984

Primary Name: Olds, John

Filed as: Olds, John

Also known as: John Olds

Occupation / Association: Property owner in early Juneau

Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Telephone Hill, Juneau

Keywords: John Olds, Olds John, Juneau property owners, Telephone Hill Juneau residents, early Juneau land ownership

Biography

John Olds was an early property owner in Juneau, Alaska.

He purchased lots in Juneau and may have had a residence associated with the Telephone Hill neighborhood.

His ownership of property in the area is noted in historical references related to the development of the Telephone Hill district in Juneau.

Sources

DeArmond, Robert N., 1967.

Telephone Hill Historic Site and Structures Survey, 1984.

https://poajuneau.nationbuilder.com/garside_charleshttps://poajuneau.nationbuilder.com/degroff_edEuro-American presence in southeast Alaska began in·the latter part of the 18th century when explorers visited the area in search of highly prized furs, particularly the sea otter, for trade purposes. The survey for Alaskan resources included the search for precious minerals and the hope of discovering the famed Northwest Passage (State of Alaska 1982).

Countries involved in exploring the northwest coast of North America included Spain, England, Russia, France and Japan. Russian explorers are recorded as the first to encounter Native groups in southeastern Alaska. The first published account of exploration in Gastineau Channel was written by Captain George Vancouver, describing his journeys in 1793 and 1794. Seventy years later, the name Gastineau Channel was included on the 1867 Humphrey manuscript furnished to Western Telegraph Company (Werner 1925).

John Muir, a well-known naturalist, visited Lynn Canal in 1879. Upon his return to Sitka after interacting with Chilkat Tlingits, Muir noted that gold might be found in the area lying between Windham Bay and Sullivan Island in northern Lynn Canal.

Chief Kowee of the Auk Tlingit brought ore samples to George Pilz, a mining engineer residing in Sitka in 1880. These samples confirmed Muir's statements of potential gold reserves in southeast Alaska ( DeArmond 1967).

Primary Name: Prior, Lila Elizabeth Ann

Filed as: Prior, Lila Elizabeth Ann

Also known as: Lila Olds; Lila Palmer

Occupation / Association: Hotel proprietor; Charter member, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Igloo No. 6

Associated places: Grand Valley, Colorado; Juneau, Alaska

Keywords: Lila Elizabeth Ann Prior, Lila Olds Juneau Alaska, Lila Palmer Juneau Alaska, Occidental Hotel Front Street Juneau, Juneau Igloo No 6 charter member, early Juneau hotel owners

Biography

Lila Elizabeth Ann Prior was a charter member of the Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Igloo No. 6.

She was born on October 27, 1872, in Grand Valley, Colorado, the daughter of John and Eliza Prior.

She married John Olds in Juneau on December 7, 1886. Their marriage produced five children: John, Brilliant, Klonda, Harry, and Lydia. John Olds died in Washington in August 1910.

Lila became the proprietor of the Occidental Hotel located on Front Street in Juneau, an establishment that served travelers and residents during the city’s early development.

On September 15, 1917, she married Dr. A. J. Palmer.

Lila Elizabeth Ann Prior Olds Palmer died in Juneau, Alaska, on March 28, 1939.

Sources

Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850–1950, Volume 5, p. 215

Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850–1950, Volume 2, p. 243

Alaska Daily Empire, September 17, 1917

Primary Name: Olds, Lyda Evelyn

Filed as: Olds, Lyda Evelyn

Also known as: Lyda Evelyn Sinclair

Occupation / Association: Charter member, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women’s Igloo No. 6

Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Seattle, Washington; Renton, Washington

Keywords: Lyda Evelyn Olds, Lyda Sinclair, Olds family Juneau Alaska, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women's Igloo No 6 charter member, Sinclair family Alaska

Biography

Lyda Evelyn Olds was a Charter Member of Juneau Igloo No. 6 of the Pioneers of Alaska.

She was born in September 1901 in Alaska to John Olds and Lila Olds.

She married Duncan John Sinclair on March 14, 1923. The couple had a daughter, Lila Evelyn Sinclair, who was born August 10, 1923, in Seattle, Washington.

The family lived in John Olds's home ion Telephone Hill n Juneau until 1944.

Lyda Evelyn Olds Sinclair died November 4, 1972, in Renton, Washington.

1910 U.S. Federal Census, Juneau; 1940 U.S. Federal Census, Juneau; WWII Draft Registration; Alaska Daily Empire, March 15, 1923; Washington Death Certificate

Primary Name: Mathews, Klondyke Evonne

Filed as: Mathews, Klondyke Evonne

Also known as: Klondyke "Klonda" Evonne Olds, Klonda Mathews

Occupation / Association: Charter Member, Pioneers of Alaska Women's Igloo No. 6

Born: July 18, 1897, Alaska

Died: September 20, 1983, Huntington Beach, California

Parents: John Olds; Lila Elizabeth Ann Prior Olds

Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Grand Junction, Colorado; Huntington Beach, California

Keywords: Klondyke Evonne Olds Mathews, Klonda Olds, Klonda Mathews, Juneau Alaska pioneer women, Pioneers of Alaska Women's Igloo 6 charter member

Biography

Klondyke "Klonda" Evonne Olds Mathews was a Charter Member of Juneau Women's Igloo No. 6 of the Pioneers of Alaska.

She was born July 18, 1897, in Alaska to John Olds and Lila Elizabeth Ann Prior Olds.

On August 23, 1922, she married Avery Lester Mathews, a lawyer. The couple later moved to Colorado, where they had two children: John Lester Mathews, born October 13, 1929, and Myra Ann Mathews, born in 1931.

Klondyke Evonne Mathews died September 20, 1983, in Huntington Beach, California.

Sources

1900 U.S. Federal Census, Juneau; 1940 U.S. Federal Census, Grand Junction, Colorado; California Death Index; Alaska Vital Records

The Juneau Memorial Library, aka the Veterans Memorial Building, located at 114 W. Fourth Street, has a commanding presence, sitting on a hillside at the corner of Fourth and Main streets, across from the Alaska State Capitol and overlooking downtown Juneau.

The building stands on a prominent location in the community, next to Alaska's state capitol, on a hill overlooking downtown Juneau with a residential area behind it.

The Juneau Memorial Library, completed in 1951, was the first major community project initiated by Juneau residents. The Juneau Rotary Club undertook construction of a library building for the town's residents as a memorial to the men and women of the area who fought in World Wars I and II.

A local architectural firm designed the stately reinforced concrete building incorporating Neo-Classical Revival architectural elements.

The building housed the community's library until the mid-1980s. It is now the city's museum, continuing to be a public facility serving the community. The period of significance starts in 1951 when the library opened and ends in 1959 to encompass the statehood event.

Following the discovery of gold on Gold Creek in Silver Bow Basin in 1880, the town of Juneau was established. It became a center for large scale hard-rock mining. The city incorporated in 1900 and became Alaska's capital in 1906. It was Alaska's largest community from 1920 to 1950.

In 1897, the Juneau Public Library Association, comprised mainly of local ministers, organized and provided a library collection that was housed in the federal courthouse. In 1898, the building burned and the library with it. A library was not reestablished.

In 1906, a party of American Library Association visitors met with Juneau's mayor and left a collection of books. The mayor told the group he would try to get the City Council to pass an ordinance to establish a free library. Apparently, the Carnegie Library Foundation Association made an offer of a building to the city after the visit.

Juneau did not have a public library again, however, until 1914 when the Juneau Draper Club, a civic group, founded one. The club bought books, rented a small building, and hired a librarian. They opened a reading room in August 1914 and a circulation department in December 1914.

A Juneau Library Association organized in April 1915, and at the end of the year reported 141 monthly subscribers and 55 yearly subscribers to the association. In a letter to the librarian at the Seattle Public Library, dated May 18, 1915, the Association's president wrote that "Our library is small, consisting of about fifteen hundred books, and at present the position pays $75 per month. It is a free circulating library with a reading room. We prefer a lady, one not too young, and a Protestant, If you know of any person or persons who would like this position, will you please have them apply as soon as possible?"

On the first anniversary the library cited impressive statistics. They had 1,180 borrowers, 350 of whom were children. During December 1915 there had been 700 people visiting the reading room. The Draper Club paid $150 to operate the library, and in 1915, the president, Ben D. Stewart, said the group could not continue to support it. Stewart, however, also was the city's mayor. He persuaded the City Council to pledge $1,800 a year for library support.

The City of Juneau took over the library on August 16, 1918, and housed it in two rooms on the top floor of Juneau City Hall. The Juneau librarian wrote an article, "Libraries in Alaska," that appeared in the American Library Association's journal in 1918. The librarian mentioned that Juneau "has not been able to accept the generous offer of a $20,000 building" made the year before by the Carnegie Library Foundation. By the end of World War II the two rooms were badly overcrowded.

The Juneau City Hall was razed in 1950 for construction of the Alaska Office Building, and the library moved temporarily to the Teen Age Club on South Seward Street.

Rev. Herbert Hillerman, Juneau Rotary Club president, announced at the August 28, 1945, meeting shortly after World War II ended that building a library as a memorial and tribute to area veterans of the World Wars would be the Club's top priority.

The next year, under the leadership of B. Frank Heintzleman, Ben D. Stewart, and James C. Ryan, the Rotary Club purchased the Olds family property at the corner of West Fourth and Main streets and hired architects Ross and Malcolm to design a building to be the community library.

The federal Public Works Administration advanced funds to pay for architectural services. The architects completed the drawings in 1946 and the Juneau Memorial Library Board of the Rotary Club sold the land that year for $2,500.00 to the city.

In 1949 a new Alaska Public Works program allowed the architects to increase the size of the building and add the basement to the plans. The Rotary Club then called upon members of the community for donations to construct the building. "Want to buy a ticket?" was heard throughout town. Service clubs, fraternal organizations, church groups and members of the community sold tickets to bazaars, hosted home cooked food sales, dinners, card parties, dances, white elephant sales, minstrel shows and even peddled chances to win an automobile. The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood performed tribal dances and the Filipino Community held a special dance and costume exhibition.

Residents raised $82,000 and the federal Public Works Administration provided another $71,000 for construction. Ann Coleman, longtime and beloved community librarian, broke ground for the building on September 10, 1950.

At the dedication ceremony November 11, 1951, Heintzleman said, "this project represents I think the finest example in this territory of community spirit and enterprise working for a cultural project to benefit 'old and young, rich and poor'".

The construction of the library was the first major community effort to "obtain a facility of major size by the direct method of public contributions," making it an example of community planning and development in Juneau. Heintzleman insisted the library serve some twenty smaller communities in the Juneau area as well.

Many local residents view the building as a landmark in the community and have fond memories of it. In 1951, Mike Blackwell was eleven and remembers being paid twenty-five cents an hour to work for Miss Lomen, the librarian, after school each day for two hours and on Saturday afternoons.

The first floor housed fiction and non-fiction and had a high shelf with books children were not allowed to check out. Blackwell remembers that one could examine the loan record in the books, and he often looked at who had checked out a particular book. He also recalls that the new building was spacious and "for a long time there was a lot more room than books."

The library was designed to house 18,000 volumes. The children's section in the basement was called the Ann Coleman Room.

Today, the building is home to the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. According to former librarians Donna Pierce and Barbara Berg, because of the strong emotional attachment to the building the City Museum was the only suitable tenant.

At the May 16, 1989, assembly meeting, local Veterans of Foreign Wars and Donna Olds Barton suggested the building be rededicated as the Veterans Memorial Building. The rededication ceremony was held July 1, 1989, as part of the opening of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum in the building. The building is now dedicated to "all the men and women of the Juneau Area who served in our country's Foreign Wars."

On the library property is the Alaska Statehood Site, significant as the official site of the statehood ceremony and first raising of the 49 star flag on July 4, 1959.

Non-voting territorial delegate James Wickersham introduced the first bill for Alaska statehood in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916. Low population, geographical separation from the other states, and how Alaskans would pay the expenses of statehood delayed statehood for more than forty years.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation admitting Alaska as the 49tb state of the union on January 3, 1959. By executive order the new 49 star national flag did not become the official ensign until July 4th of the year.

An estimated three thousand people stood at attention as the first 49-star flag was raised in front of the Juneau Memorial Library by a military honor guard on July 4, 1959.

Author, lecturer, world traveler and New Yorker, Lowell Thomas was master of ceremonies. At 3:00 p.m. Governor Bill Egan spoke to the crowd while the flag was being raised. One of the territorial governors, Waino E. Hendrickson, was present. The site, marked with a commemorative plaque between the flagpoles, was dedicated at the ceremony.

Two large weather balloons carrying flags of Alaska and the nation were released in the hopes they would carry the news of Alaska statehood to the rest of the world. A parade went past the front of the library after the ceremony.

The July 6, 1959, edition of the Juneau newspaper reported "Special guests from across the nation observed the 49th star flag raising ceremonies from stands at one wing of the State Office Building. The State signs were carried by members of a delegation of Westinghouse appliance dealers who flew to Juneau for the ceremonies." The flagpoles at the site fly a 49 star flag and an Alaska flag and the plaque can be read by people passing on the sidewalk.

Only two other sites in Alaska associated with Alaska statehood have been documented and designated historic places. Constitution Hall on the University of Alaska campus at Fairbanks was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 3, 2005, for its association with the 1955-1956 Constitutional Convention.

The American Flag Raising Site at Sitka, designated a National Historic Landmark on October 15, 1966, is another site of an official statehood ceremony, but it is better known as the site of the ceremonial transfer of Alaska from Russian to U.S. administration in 1867.

Two totem poles, Harnessing the Atom by Amos Wallace installed in 1970 and Four Story-Pole by John Wallace installed in 1994, are on the property and counted as non-contributing objects to its placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

National Register of Historic Register Nomination Form

Juneau Memorial Library Photos

The Valentine Building, built in two phases in 1904 and completed in 1913, is significant for its Frontier Alaskan architectural character, its recognized importance as Juneau's most prestigious office building
during the first half of this century, its association with Emery Valentine and other prominent pioneer Alaskans and significant historic events.

Emery Valentine arrived in Alaska in 1886, possessed of a strong degree of entrepreneurial ambition. At the age of 10, he had already crossed the midwest plains with his pioneering parents.

He followed the Rocky Mountain gold fields as prospector and miner, and lost a leg lost in an early Colorado Territory mining accident.

Still following the gold trails, Valentine arrived in the raw gold camp of Juneau only six years after that significant 1880 Gold Creek discovery by Joe Juneau and Richard T. Harris. He learned goldsmithing—which led him into the gold jewelry trade.

John Olds, one of the first sourdough prospectors following Juneau and Harris, recalled that,"We landed our canoe on November, 1880, at the foot of where Seward Street new is. . ."  This site, just at the-tide mark, was registered, in 1881 as a mining claim, the Boston Lode.

In 1896, yhe year after Valentine's Alaskan arrival, Ernest Ingersoll's best-selling book, Gold Fields of the Klondyke, proclaimed "Juneau, a town of 3,000 is rightly called the metropolis of Alaska Territory. Whether she will retain this prestige remains to be seen. If so, one of two things must occur.  She must plane down
the side of her mountains or erect skyscraping buildings with elevators to accommodate her populace, for nearly every foot of available ground is already occupied. . ."

Emery Valentine was foremost among the developers who found a better way.

When he arrived in Juneau, Front Street was the high tide beach of Gastineau Channel. Emery Valentine, accordingly, was among those who set progress by filling in ground along this derelict beachline. This enabled Valentine to build the first segment of his first building.

"Walking up the stairs to the second floor of the Valentine Building . . . is a trip back into what was the most prestigious business building of Juneau in the early 1900's, built by one of Juneau's colorful pioneer characters ..."  according to Toni Croft & Phyllis Bradner's Touring Juneau; Back Streets, Bawdy-houses, Bars & Bodacious Biographies.

In 1913, the Valentine Building block was advantageously enlarged to in­clude the prime corner lot at Seward and Front Streets. The 1904 structure not only doubled in size, but its impact was vastly enhanced by the most prominent corner location of two streets—rather than only one.

Emery Valentine had come to Alaska in 1886 to satisfy a lifelong desire to develop North America's "Last Frontier." Valentine founded Juneau's finest jewelry store which occupied the city's test retail site at the corner of Seward and Front with exposure on both streets.

Valentine became highly active in Alaskan politics and civic activities. He was Chairman of a city council-type organization called the Juneau Board of Safety, and underwriter and private financier for the first Juneau Fire Department. Valentine served six successful terms as Mayor after Juneau was incorporated in 1900.

Emery Valentine proved his deep commitment to development of Southeastern Alaska. As one of the largest property owners in southeastern Alaska, he helped found the Alaska Steamship Line, the foremost freight and passenger ocean line with service to Seattle. He founded the Peoples Wharf Company Docks at Skagway and Juneau, which so affected shipping charges in these ports, that coal and lumber prices dropped to almost half of the exorbitant rates paid before 1900.

Valentine wanted to erect "a quality structure that would give Juneau a truer air of urbanity."

The Valentine Building was the first in Alaska where office space was intentionally separated from retail space. The building's reputation for quality offices, gained over the years, and its ideal central downtown location, as well as architectural quality, provided elite tenancy for the first half of the century.

Architecturally, the Valentine building is an outstanding example of frontier Commercial architecture that recalls a pioneer Alaskan tradition of quality craftswork; the design responding and interpreting the contemporary archi­tectural developments of the late 19th century West Coast.

Despite intentions to the contrary, the building is a vernacular one; yet impressive in its execution of style. The isolation of Juneau at that time, plus the popularity of pattern books as architectural design aids, provided the fine ornamentation of the building which was available from Seattle millworks).

Stylistically, Valentine Building provides documentation of an historic design evolution.

It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination form