Frank Stragier was born on the 23, 1914 .

He was a Private in the US Army in World War 2.

Stragier died on March 30, 1965 and is buried in the

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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

Frank A. Brown was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Brown was born in December 1855 in Vermont. He came to Alaska in August 1893 where he was a barber by trade, most of the time owning a shop of his own.

He was one of the original locators of the Boston Group mine just beyond Chicken Ridge and he was interested in the claims for several years.

He also lived in Tenakee and various Alaskan cities and was in Juneau last in 1920.

Mr. Brown served in the Civil War as a drummer boy when he was 15 and was a veteran of that war.

He died at the Soldiers Home at Orting, Washington on September 1, 1921.

1900 U.S. Federal Population Census, Daily Alaska Empire, September 6, 1921

John Nelson "Doc" Carver was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

John Carver was born near Janesville, Wisconsin in 1848. At the age of 16 he enlisted as a private in Company L of the Third Regiment of Wisconsin Cavalry. He mustered out after active service on the battlefronts on October 23, 1865.

Carver came to Juneau around the turn of the century and spent several years prospecting. He was employed by the George Simpkins printing shop for a time and was also engaged as a teamster for Juneau transfer companies.

As Juneau’s only Civil War veteran, “Doc” always was given a place of honor in the Memorial Day processions. The nickname “Doc” was given to him many years ago, after Dr. Carver, the famous buffalo hunter.

He died in Juneau on February 3, 1936 at the age of 88.

Daily Alaska Empire, February 3, 1936

Trevor P. Montgomery Davis was a charter member of Juneau Men's Igloo, where he served a term as Secretary.

Davis was born in 1892, in Alameda, California, where his mother, Frances, went for the event. In three months, they were back in Juneau. At age twelve, he began working on the Davis Properties.

In 1910, he bought a sailboat and converted it to a gas boat in partnership with brother Cedric. They exchanged
the little boat for the Cordelia D in 1914, when they started a charter business for hunting and cruising. Trevor earned the operator and pilot’s license for a 100-ton boat, and in 1917, completed the requirements for an engineer’s license at the Duthrie Shipyards in Seattle, Washington.

Then he joined the Navy and was stationed at Bremerton, Washington, San Diego, California, and the Great Lakes Naval  Station in Chicago, Illinois.

Photography became a big interest in 1912, when Trevor obtained his first camera. He developed his oil tinting technique on enlarged photographs. He sold them at the Nugget Shop and at other gift shops locally. The older photographers, Winter & Pond and Case & Draper, gave him some of their pictures and suggestions.

In 1921, he exhibited his photographs in San Francisco, and in 1926, he published a charming booklet of his early photographs, Here and There in Southeast Alaska.

Trevor was one of seven on the committee to choose the Alaska flag, and he supported and voted for the present design in 1927.

He was a charter member of the American Legion and the Juneau Yacht Club. As a member of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce for forty-eight years, he was eager to see things happen in his home town. The first small boat harbor and the breakwater project were among his propositions. Trevor contributed to several magazines and newspapers on his adventures in Southeast Alaska.

In the spring of 1921, Trevor met Carol Beery, a newcomer who was inquiring how to find the beautiful wild violets often displayed in downtown shop windows. Her inquiries led her to the “boatman.” He told her it was hard to explain how to get there and that he would just show her. This demonstration entailed a boat trip aboard the Cordelia D, and getting to Sheep Creek Basin via the Thane tramway. Not many people used the unpredictable road. In this way, the
romance began. They were married in 1922, and raised four daughters: Sylvia, Shirley, Connie, and Patte.

In 1934, Trevor set up business on Seward Street in developing, printing, and tinting. He became an Eastman Kodak dealer. The Snap Shoppe had a busy life for twenty-five years. His tinted photo of Juneau’s Harbor Lights was an hour long exposure on a clear night in 1942. A fishing boat chugged by, causing a wake, so he had to start over again to achieve the perfect reflection! His artistic forte was in contrasts and composition, especially with winter light and shadow. Progressing from black and white to the new color photography, he acquired a vast collection of slides and movies. Many friends and acquaintances were entertained by his public and home shows. Hired by the Prince William Sound Canneries, he captured salmon runs on colored film along with the bears.

After retiring from his business, Trevor developed the subdivision, Pinewood Park. The Davises piloted the newly acquired Sylvita to the Seattle World’s Fair where they joined family and friends. Trevor enjoyed many new adventures.

He traveled to the east in company with a local Tlingit dancing group for the U.S. Bicentennial, motored throughout Alaska in celebration of its Centennial, visited relatives on the west coast, and saw the South Pacific. He authored a
pictorial review of Juneau, Looking Back on Juneau - The First Hundred Years.

Trevor died in the Pioneers Home at age 97 in 1990, and was buried at Juneau’s Evergreen Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and daughters: Sylvia, Shirley, and Constance.

Gastineau Channel Memories 1880-1959 p. 119

Cedric P. Montgomery Davis was a chsrter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Davis was born in Juneau in 1894. His experience with boats, engines and navigation in partnership with his brother, Trevor, led him to enlist in the Navy during WW I. He was assigned to a sub-chaser as Quartermaster. Later he was reassigned to the battleship Oregon, and then transferred to a freighter on the Atlantic which enabled him to visit his mother’s sister in England.

In the early 1920’s, Cedric operated a boat for the Hearst-Chichagof Mining Company, and owned a mine on Crestof Island. He enjoyed prospecting there and along the Taku River.

At the onset of WW II, Cedric worked for the Army in Nome, operating the diesel electrical plant. When Cedric wasn’t on a boat, he stayed at the old family home on 6th Street with sister, Cordelia, and her family.

After his sister and husband moved to Seattle, Cedric made one of the smaller 6th Street Davis houses his home. In the 1950’s, he joined Trevor in developing the Pinewood Park subdivision, land that belonged to the Davis properties. He assisted in constructing cabins for Carol and her daughters on land obtained by Carol under the U.S. Small Tract Act. When the Cordelia D was traded for the trim Sylvita, Cedric traveled with Carol and Trevor aboard their new boat to the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.

Years later he enjoyed visiting Mexico in the winter with more visits in Seattle.

People remember Cedric as a kind and generous man who liked to see everyone happy, especially the children to whom he gave money for ice cream at every opportunity. He never
married.

Cedric died at Bartlett Memorial Hospital in 1977, at the age of 83 and is buried next to his parents at Evergreen Cemetery.

Gastineau Channel Memories 1880-1959 p. 119

General William Langmead Distin was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Distin was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, February 9, 1843, enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War and served in many of its major engagements. Later he was in Illinois National Guard and served as aid-de-camp to Governors Hamilton, Olgesby, and Fifer of that state. He also served a term as Grand Commander of the Republic.

On August 7, 1897, President McKinley appointed him the first Surveyor-General of Alaska, which office he held until October 18, 1913.

In the fall of 1906 he moved the records, papers, and furnishings of the Governor's Office from Sitka to Juneau, thus finally establishing Juneau as the capital.

Distin Avenue - a short residential street branching of Indian Street in the central part of Juneau was named after him. The street was first named Farnum Street for Oliver T. Farnum.

Distin died in Chicago, November 20, 1914.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~akcjunea/index.html

Charles Naghel was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo, and served as President in 1915.

Naghel was born in Roseville, California on February 15, 1880. His father was Edward Nagel who was an actor, singer, dancer and musician who barnstormed through the mining camps of California. His mother died when he was in 5th grade and his father took him out of school and he and his younger brothers and sister were carted all over California till his father married again.

At the age of 15 he went to work in the steel rolling mills.

When the Spanish American War broke out in 1898, he was 18 years old and he joined the California infantry. It was a short war, but he got the chance to enroll in a school in Pennsylvania, in correspondence.

When the war ended, he took his books and joined the Marines. In 1900 a contingent of Marines was sent to Sitka to quell an uprising between two tribes of Indians. He lived in the Marine Barracks that later became the first Pioneers Home. By this time, he was working on his high school diploma from the Calvert Correspondence School.

He met his future wife, Annetta Theresa Johnson, in Sitka in 1904. She was working as a musician on the S.S. Spokane.

Charles decided to resign from the Marines and went to work in Juneau for the Alaska Steam Laundry. He drove the horse wagon that picked up and delivered, making $70 a month. He proposed during the 1905 tourist season and they decided to marry the next year at the end of the season. However, Annetta jumped ship and they were married in Juneau on August 6, 1906 while he was still working at the laundry.

Then in 1907 they moved to Skagway where he worked for the U.S. Customs. They moved back to Juneau when the first of their three children, their son Pat, was born on February 10, 1908. They moved to Sitka where he worked for Mr. Mills store but he was restless and the family returned to Juneau on October 3, 1900, where he worked at Ross-Higgins a grocery store across the street from Burford's corner.

From there Charles went to Charlie Goldsteins's store and then landed a job in the U.S. Land Office where he worked for many years. He was a clerk for the US Surveyor Generals Office. His job was to approve and pay all Federal debs in the Alaska Territory. He held the office until he retired in 1942.

After retiring he spend most of his time in the family's summer home in the Mendenhall Valley. He continued to maintain Hazel Jaeger McKinnon's books for the Alaska Laundry.

Charles Naghel died September 28, 1945 in Juneau.

Gastineau Channel Memories, 1880-1967, Vol 2 pp. 265-266 Story by Grace Naghel; Alaska
Marriage License

Pioneers of Alaska Men’s Igloo 6 Biographical Sketch

John G. Peterson was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Peterson was an early Juneau businessman and miner.

Born near Hamburg, Germany, October 7, 1861, Peterson was educated in German schools and learned the tinsmith trade. He came to the United States in 1881, worked at his trade in New York, Chicago and St. Louis, then enlisted in the Army where he served for five years, mostly in Indian Territory.

Peterson arrived in Juneau in April, 1888, and bought a small shop here. For the next 13 years he operated a tin, stove, and hardware store and devoted his spare time to prospecting.

In 1893, he returned to Hamburg and married Marie Jensen.

In April 1899, Peterson staked a placer claim on the creek which now bears his name. He called it Cheechako Creek and one of its tributaries Goose Creek, and named the valley Prairie Basin. Later in the same year the lake was called Reservoir Lake in the mining records. By 1905 it had become known as Peterson Lake.

Peterson sold his store to devote all of his time to mining. His principal lode claim was half a mile east of the lake and was first reached by trail from Tee Harbor.

Later Peterson built his home at Pearl Harbor and hewed out a wagon road from there to the mine, where he installed a three-stamp mill. He operated the mine until shortly before his death which occurred on August 20, 1916.

It was afterward operated for several years by Marie Peterson and their daughters, Irma Peterson and Margaret Peterson.

The present Peterson Lake Trail follows the old wagon road, leaving Glacier Highway at Mile 24. Peterson Lake is located on the mainland 16 miles northwest of Juneau and a mile from tidewater at Tee Harbor.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~akcjunea/index.html

Colonel Solomon Ripinski was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Ripinski was born on April 15, in Rypin, Poland. He received a good European education and studied at some of the best military schools in Europe. Here he acquired a thorough knowledge of drafting and considerable skill in sketching, drawing and painting.

Mr. Ripinski graduated with the rank of second lieutenant of cavalry and being too young to enter the service, visited many of the principal cities of Europe.

Coming to the United States he made a partial tour of the Eastern and Southern States and located at Shreveport, La., where he engaged in merchandise. He moved to Sacramento, California and opened a studio where he painted several fine oil paintings.

After a short residence in California he located at Salem, Oregon, in 1878, and became identified with the State Militia, rising rapidly to the rank of colonel.

In 1878 he received from the Oregon State Fair Association and Mechanics fair, at Portland Oregon the, first prize for the emblematic Masonic chart.

Under the administration of Governor W.W. Thayer, Mr. Ripinsky was honored with an appointment on His Excellency’s staff as aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was a High Free Mason and a Sir Past Chancellor Commander Knights of Pythias, and a member of the Arctic Brotherhood.

Colonel Ripinsky came to Alaska in 1884, with the famous Arctic explorer the late Lieutenant Frederick Swatka. Under Attorney-General Haskett he was appointed clerk and in 1885 commissioned to establish a United States Government school in Western Alaska. Transferred from Unalaska to Chilkat, he became principal of the school at that place, and served one term.

He was owner and founder of the townsite of Haines Mission. From 1887 to 1890 he was connected with
the Pyramid Harbor salmon cannery, and during the latter year opened a general merchandise
store on his own account at Chilkat, Alaska.

In view of his services to the Government, one of the Chilkat Mountains has been named for him; Mount Ripinsky is 3,680 feet high.

Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 1, p270-272, by Ed Ferrell (May 1, 200