MacKinnon, Martha
Primary Name: Lyche, Martha Malin
Filed as: Lyche, Martha Malin
Also known as: Martha MacKinnon; Martha Malin MacKinnon
Occupation / Association: Charter Member, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women's Auxiliary No. 6; hotel operator
Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Tacoma, Washington; Norway
Keywords: Martha Malin Lyche Juneau Alaska, Martha MacKinnon Juneau Alaska, Lockie MacKinnon family Juneau, Juneau Hotel Main Street history, MacKinnon Apartments Juneau, Pioneers of Alaska Juneau Women's Auxiliary charter members, early Juneau hotel operators
Biography
Martha Malin Lyche was a Charter Member of the Pioneers of Alaska, Juneau Women’s Auxiliary No. 6.
She was born in Norway in May of 1873 and immigrated to the United States in 1887. In 1892, she came to Alaska from Tacoma, Washington.
Lockie MacKinnon traveled to Seattle in June to hire maids for the Circle City Hotel in Juneau. Martha and a Scandinavian friend were hired and traveled north to Juneau.
Martha later recalled that “two weeks later, I foolishly married the man.” Their first son, James Simpson MacKinnon, was born in Juneau in March 1897. Twin sons, John Neil Donald MacKinnon and Thron Rudolf MacKinnon, were born in 1901.
Lockie and Martha operated the Zynda Hotel, later renamed the Juneau Hotel, on Main Street. In 1926, the couple built the MacKinnon Apartments at Third and Franklin Streets in downtown Juneau.
Martha Malin Lyche MacKinnon died on October 12, 1948.
Sources
1900 U.S. Federal Census, Juneau, Alaska.
1910 U.S. Federal Census, Tacoma, Washington.
Alaska Gold Rush Pioneers of Juneau Douglas Area 1880-1921, p. 49.
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.
McKinnon, Lauchlin
Primary Name: MacKinnon, Lauchlin
Filed as: mackinnon_lauchlin
Also known as: Lockie MacKinnon; Lauchlin "Lockie" MacKinnon
Occupation / Association: Charter member, Juneau Men’s Igloo; miner; hotel proprietor; pioneer businessman
Born: 1866, Lake Ainslie, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
Died: 1946, Juneau, Alaska
Parents: Archibald Neil MacKinnon; Mary MacLeod
Spouse: Martha Maline Lokke
Children: James Simpson MacKinnon; John Neil Donald (Donald Lokke MacKinnon); Thron Rudolph Lokke MacKinnon
Associated places: Lake Ainslie, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; Scotland; Juneau, Alaska; Porcupine District, Alaska; Dyea, Alaska; Chilkoot Pass; Stikine River; Yukon River; Lake Laberge; Forty Mile, Yukon; Atlin, British Columbia; Cleary Creek, Fairbanks, Alaska; Seattle, Washington
Keywords: Lauchlin MacKinnon, Lockie MacKinnon, MacKinnon Juneau pioneer, Juneau Men’s Igloo charter member, Atlin gold discovery, Circle City Hotel Juneau, MacKinnon Apartments Juneau, Martha Lokke MacKinnon, Archibald Neil MacKinnon, Mary MacLeod, Porcupine mining district, Chilkoot Pass cattle drive, Alaska pioneers
Biography
Lauchlin “Lockie” MacKinnon was a charter member of the Juneau Men’s Igloo and one of the early pioneers of the Juneau district.
MacKinnon was born in 1866 at Lake Ainslie, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His parents, Archibald Neil MacKinnon and Mary MacLeod, lived on the family farm there. The family had emigrated from Scotland in 1820.
As a teenager, Lockie left home and later said that he traveled on foot across Canada through the Cassiar District before reaching the Stikine River. From there, he traveled down the Stikine and eventually reached Juneau by boat.
Early in his mining career, he entered into a partnership with George Miller, and the two mined the Porcupine district in the early 1890s. In 1893, MacKinnon joined Jack Horn, John Reed, and another companion, probably Miller, in crossing the Chilkoot Pass from Dyea. During this journey, they encountered General Frederick Funston, who was touring Alaska as a government representative for the Smithsonian Institution.
At the foot of Lake Laberge, they built boats and traveled down the Yukon River, passing Five Fingers and continuing as far as Forty Mile.
During the winter of 1895–1896, MacKinnon and Miller erected the Circle City Hotel in Juneau on Third Street between Seward and Franklin streets. The hotel contained eighty rooms, a bar, and a dining room, and was named for Circle City in the Yukon.
In 1896, MacKinnon traveled to Seattle to secure maids for the hotel. Martha Maline Lokke, who had been born in Norway in 1870, and a Scandinavian friend were hired and came to Juneau. Martha later recalled that “two weeks later I foolishly married the man.” Miller reportedly turned to Martha’s friend just before the ceremony and suggested that they marry as well, resulting in what may have been one of the first double weddings in the Territory.
MacKinnon was one of four discoverers of the Atlin gold fields in 1897. The party traveled from Juneau over the snow via the Taku River and Atlin Lake. News of their discovery reached the outside world in August of that year, triggering a rush to the Atlin district.
During the winter of 1898, MacKinnon and Fritz Miller, the brother of George Miller, drove the first herd of cattle over the Chilkoot Pass to Dawson.
Martha and Lockie’s first child, James Simpson MacKinnon, was born in 1897 and was named in honor of the physician Dr. James Kidd Simpson, who had earlier saved Lockie’s life after an explosion and cave-in at the Ebner Mine. In 1901, the couple welcomed twins, John Neil Donald and Thron Rudolph Lokke MacKinnon, who were born in the family home located on the land where the MacKinnon Apartments would later stand. Rudolph died during the diphtheria epidemic of 1911. John Neil Donald later changed his name to Donald Lokke MacKinnon.
Following Rudolph’s death, Martha and Lockie returned to Juneau and managed the Zynda Hotel, later renamed the Juneau Hotel, on Main Street.
In 1926, the MacKinnons constructed the apartment house at Third and Franklin streets, which was promoted as “Juneau’s first modern apartment house.” The building was enlarged during the 1960s and became known as the MacKinnon Apartments.
The MacKinnons resided continuously in Juneau except for four years spent at Cleary Creek near Fairbanks and two years in Seattle.
Both were active in the Juneau community. They were members of Northern Light Presbyterian Church, the Pioneers of Alaska, the Elks, and the Eastern Star. MacKinnon also served for many years as a trustee of the Pioneers’ Home in Sitka.
The couple continued to reside at the MacKinnon Apartments until their deaths.
Sources
Gastineau Channel Memories, 1880–1959, p. 301
Tags: Lauchlin MacKinnon, Lockie MacKinnon, MacKinnon family Juneau, Juneau Men’s Igloo charter member, Atlin gold discoverer, Circle City Hotel Juneau, MacKinnon Apartments Juneau, Martha Lokke MacKinnon, Porcupine mining district, Chilkoot Pass cattle drive, Juneau pioneers
Historic Pioneers W-Z
Primary Name: Jack Zavodsky
Filed as: Zavodsky, Jack
Also known as: John Zavodsky
Born: May 16, 1864 – Bohemia
Died: February 17, 1951 – Chicago, Illinois
Occupation / Association: Bartender; cook; hotel worker; night patrolman
Associated places: Juneau, Alaska; Circle City Hotel; Occidental Hotel; Seattle, Washington; Chicago, Illinois
Organizations: Juneau Men’s Igloo
Keywords: Circle City Hotel, Occidental Hotel, introduction of cocktails in Alaska, Juneau pioneers, Alaska Gold Rush era
Biography
Jack Zavodsky was a charter member of the Juneau Men’s Igloo.
Zavodsky was born in Bohemia on May 16, 1864. He came to the United States in 1889 to join his father on a farm in Kansas.
At age fourteen, he had run away from home to Wild Horse, Colorado, where he worked as a railroad section hand. He later returned to Kansas and eventually made his way west to the Pacific Coast, working as a cook and bartender.
Zavodsky arrived in Juneau aboard the steamer Alki in 1896 and went to work at the Circle City Hotel, owned by George Miller and Lockie MacKinnon, where he worked in the dining room and kitchen.
According to local accounts, Zavodsky introduced the cocktail to Alaska. When a patron asked for a cocktail in the hotel bar, Jack stepped behind the bar and asked what kind he preferred. “Make it any kind,” the man replied. Zavodsky mixed a whiskey cocktail, and it quickly became popular among other patrons.
George Miller later made him head bartender until Jack Olds, owner of the Occidental Hotel, hired him at $60 per month plus room and board.
Zavodsky spent several years working for Juneau businessmen as a night patrolman for business houses.
He left Juneau around 1941, moving first to Seattle and later to Chicago. Zavodsky died at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Chicago on February 17, 1951.
Sources
- Daily Alaska Empire, February 23, 1951.