The first elected queen, Gussie Byington, made a homemade crown that was used 1980-1983. After that a metal and jeweled crown was purchased for the Queen Regent.

The King Regent was presented with a gold-plated No. 2 "muck stick" or round-pointed shovel for the Royal Scepter, and he has always worn a black derby hat of felt material. In mid-1987 materials were purchased and the auxiliary made new King and Queen Regent robes. None had been used before this date.

Each year the names of the King and Queen Regent of that year are engraved on small brass plates, and are attached to the shovel handle.

The first gold colored round-pointed shovel was used by then Gov. Bill Sheffield and Grand President Max Wells at the ground breaking ceremony of the Juneau Pioneers Home on
September 25, 1986.

Trevor Davis was President of the Juneau Men's Igloo in 1963.

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

The Alaskan Hotel is the oldest operating hotel in the Capital City of Juneau, and is among the oldest in continous operation in Alaska.

It is associated with events that have made significant contributions to local and state history; and is an excellent architectural example of the transitional change between 19th and early 20th century.

Although Juneau came into being as a placer gold boom camp, in 1880, unlike many subsequent "boom and bust" camps, it became apparent that a city of some consequence would develop here. Placers, expectedly, were soon mined out; but the presence of vast deposits of quartz lode was established.

This developed into two large world- famous hard-rock mining and milling properties—the Treadwell Mines on adjacent Douglas Island, and the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Company —whose extensive surface works were within view of the Alaskan Hotel when it was built.

Juneau also diversified. It had five of the 27 newspapers in Alaska in 1907. It became a regional shipping and distribution point, with extensive docks and warehouses; fisheries, hydro-electric power, banking and lumbering adding to the economic affluence.

In 1900 the Territorial capital was moved from Sitka; Juneau also became one of the three District Court division headquarters; and in 1909, one of four. The City incorporated at that time.

The capital move from Sitka was slow, and occupied almost the first decade. Indeed the present capital building, although partially funded in 1911, was not completed until 1931.

A governor's mansion was planned, and several other executive buildings were built or leased, during the first decade, as government became an important part of Juneau's cosmopolitan life style.

By 1905 the population of Juneau and Douglas had exceeded 6,000 and was growing. The first Territorial Legislature convened in 1913. As a frontier mining camp, Juneau had developed a coterie of miner's boarding and rooming houses; but few hotels.

In the earliest years, the few transient hostelries— Franklin House, Caine, Circle City and Central Hotels were more in the pattern of sourdough roadhouses. Franklin House, and Caine were upgraded and the Occidental and Gastineau added. There was an obvious need for more modern and quality hostelries.

It was known that Marie Bergmann, associated with two of the older hotels since 1896, was seeking outside financing for a 64 room structure. Into this breach, in 1912, stepped an interesting triuvirate: Jules B. Caro, promoter-entrepreneur, and the McCloskey brothers, James and John.

Veteran miners of the Canadian Cariboo, the McCloskey's had finally struck a rich pay-streak in the $25,000,000 diggings at Atlin, across the mountains northeast of Juneau in British Columbia. They acquired a prime location, next door to the declining Central, in close proximity to the steamship docks and central to the business district.

Ground was broken in late 1912; and the well-furnished, attractive modern hotel opened with a champagne gala on September 1, 1913.

Its place in the community was noted in an editorial under the masthead of the Daily Alaska Dispatch:

THE NEW HOTEL The owners and lessees of the Alaskan Hotel are to be congratulated at giving Juneau a modern hostelry. Juneau has needed more hotels. Our old time favorite, the Occidental, has worked faithfully to accommodate an overflowing town during the past twelve months. With the new Caine hotel there should be ample hotel accommodations for the traveling public until next spring. There is room in Juneau for all the new hotels. All will do their share and the traveling public will not be forced to seek shelter here and there, much to their discomfort.

A pioneer resident—then a teenager—Trevor Davis, recalls his plate-glass observation of the exciting Grand Opening: the McCloskey brothers milling among a well-dressed crowd, shaking magnums of champagne, the corks aimed at the newly-installed chandeliers and the gleaming ceiling of the lobby. Thereafter the McCloskey's maintained an extremely low and silent profile.

The Hotel opened under a management arrangement with P.L. Gemmett as President and Manager and F.H. McCoy, Secretary-Treasurer. In 1915, they were replaced by M.P. Goodman and E.E. Burlock, and in 1918 by a single manager, A.T. Spatz.

James McCloskey then assumed his first and only active management, for three years; until a long-term lease arrangement with local businessmen Charles Miller and Mike Pusich was announced.

After 18 months this was cancelled and Dave Housel assumed management until eventual sale by the McCloskey's. Management, thereafter, stabilized.

The Bergmann Hotel, which opened within four months after the Alaskan, quickly found its roll as an apartment-residential hotel. Later generations saw the building of the substantial Baranof, further up Franklin Street, and most recently The Prospector and Hilton.

By this time the Alaskan had become the Northlander. Now under new management and its original name, a restored Alaskan Hotel looks forward to perpetuating its landmark status into the second century of Juneau's history.

National Historic Register Nomination Form

Rare among the oldest quality residences built in early-day Juneau, the John M. Davis House ranks as the first mansion of exceptional architectural charm and distinction.

This building bears rich association with the history and lifestyle of Juneau after 1892, including many persons of prominence (including the builders) and significant events. It has been considered a "landmark" structure by Juneauites through most of this century.

Frances Davis—wife of the builder—was a wealthy artist from England who visited early-day Juneau to paint and to observe the frontier gold rush camp. She met miner and prospector Mr. Davis on the ship which brought her into Juneau.

After their marriage, the Davis's built the "mansion" on the further side of the old Boston Mining Claim—paying $25 to clear title in order to build on this choice view site.

Because Mrs. Davis was wealthy they also had 6th Street cleared in order to better proceed with their ambitious home-building project. There were no other residences then on the conmanding part of Sixth Street, prior to this construction of the J.M. Davis House.

The west wing of the large, at the time, pretentious "Mansion" was added by the Davis's about 1900 to provide Mrs. Davis with a studio for her painting. Some of her oil paintings were considered the best in the Alaska State Museum collection at Juneau.

The impressive house was the childhood residence of the Davis's son, Trevor, who was educated at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and became a pioneer photographer of Alaskan scenes, prominent in civic and business affairs in Juneau.

For some years the house was later leased to be the residence of the Admiral commanding the U.S. Coast Guard District, with headquarters in Juneau.

Mrs. Trevor Davis, septugenarian daughter-in-law of the J.M. Davis's is a former Poet Laureate of Alaska, who has also written and studied the music, art and poetry of the Tlingit lndians--and has other made significant cultural contributions to Alaska. She is a noted long-time musician and teacher, active in Juneau public, social and cultural affairs.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form

Built in 1898, the Frances House, is significant for its architectural character, its place in the historic development of the mining town, and association with important historic people who built and lived in the structure during the early development of Juneau.

Eighteen years after the discovery of gold in Juneau, Jerry Eicherly, postmaster and owner of the post office, built the Frances House. During that time, the house was leased to a Superintendent of the Perseverance Mine.

In 1911, he sold it to John Rustgard, who owned it until 1927. Mr. Rustgard was the Attorney General of the Territory of Alaska from 1920 until 1933 as well as the author of a number of books on politics and economics.

When the builidng was condemned by the city in 1927 to make way for the building of Capital School, Frances Davis purchased it. Frances, one of the first recognized Alaskan painters, was married to John M. Davis, the assistant manager of the Nowell Gold Mining Co.

Her sons moved the house fifty feet to where it rests today. The building has been known to the Community as "The Frances" since that time. The house remained in the Davis family under the stewardship of Trevor Davis, pioneer photographer and a prominent person throughout the history of Juneau in the civic and business community.

It is an outstanding example of late nineteenth century domestic vernacular architecture found in Juneau. Essentially the house is architecturally typical in materials, construction and scale for the period it was built in Juneau. It is significant for these reasons, but more so because stylistically this house is unique. A roofline like that found on the Frances House is not found elsewhere in Juneau. The design is a blending of different architectural influences from the continental U. S. with improvised changes to make it appropriate for Juneau.

Detailing embodies unusually good design composition, and the quality of the craftsmanship is time-tested, in spite of minor changes in detailing that were made when the single family house was converted to boarding rooms in the early 1900's, when and the basement converted to an apartment in 1929.

The relationship of house to street is uniquely adapted to Juneau's topography and represents an interesting solution to a street regrading. The house is in a historic residential area where many of the "best" homes of early pioneers were located. It is a well known local landmark, appreciated for its reminder of Juneau's history. The structure retains character individually and as a significant example of Juneau's residential stock. The original fabric is intact and therefore its historic integrity as well.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination form

Frances House Photos