Wickersham House
The Wickersham House is located in Juneau's most venerable residential district, Chicken Ridge, at 213 7th Street. Some of Juneau's most prominent early residents lived in this Victorian home.
The house itself, although large and well-situated, bears few distinguishing architectural features. It is sturdy, solid, functional but without the gingerbread characteristic of turn-of-the century, fashionable near-mansions. This simplicity was more characteristic of Alaska than the Lower States.
It was built in 1898 by Frank Hammond, owner of the Sheep Creek Mining Company, who enjoyed the affluence to build as he wished.
Strength, comfort, quality and convenience were considerations he prized above pomp and ostentation.
Building supplies were not a serious problem as they were in the Interior. Juneau, as the major mining center of the Far North since 1880, had well-stocked lumber, hardware and furniture supply houses and was a principal ocean port north of Seattle and San Francisco. He built accordingly, and the house as Hammond built it remains virtually unaltered.
The second owner was John Malony, a lawyer for Alaska Treadwell Gold Mining Company and the founder of Juneau Cold Storage. Malony was persuaded to sell the house to Bartlett Thane who needed a big place in which to entertain.
Thane was the manager and director of the Alaska Gastineau Mining Company. Thane, a highly respected promoter of the mines, entertained Charles Haden, New York investment banker and Daniel Jackling, comptroller of the nation's copper industry.
The Honorable James V. Wickersham who served as U.S. District Judge in Alaska from 1900-1908 and as Territorial Delegate to the Congress of the United States for 14 years, purchased the home in 1928 and lived there until his death in 1939 at age 82.
Wickersham also edited the seven-volume Alaska Law Reports, a Bibliography of Alaskan Literature, and Old Yukon Tales Trails and Trials.
"No other man has made as deep and varied imprints on Alaska's heritage, whether it be in politics, government, commerce, literature, history or philosophy. A federal judge, member of Congress, attorney and explorer, present-day Alaska is deeply in debt to him." said Evangeline Atwood, author of Frontier Politics.
Wickersham was responsible for "Home Rule", the Alaska Railroad, the University of Alaska, and Denali National Park (formerly Mount McKinley National Park).
Deborah Bell-Wickersham (1863-1926) was the judge's wife for 46 years. They had three sons, Darrell, Andrew and Howard. Darrell was the only one that lived to adulthood. He had no children of his own.
Grace Vrooma-Bishop, a widowed school teacher with no children became the Judge's second wife in 1928. After his death in 1939, she continued to live in their Juneau home until her death in 1963.
Strong, John Franklin Alexander
Governor John Strong was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.
Strong was born in Salmon Creek, New Brunswick, Canada on October 15, 1856. He graduated from the New Brunswick Normal School in 1874. After graduation he spent the next fourteen years working as a store owner and teacher throughout the province.
On December 31, 1879 he married Elizabeth A. Aitkens of Fredericton, New Brunswick. The marriage produced three children.
Major Strong was a newspaper man by profession. He had been identified with newspapers in Spokane, Bellingham, Seattle, and Tacoma for many years.
In 1896 he married Miss Anna Hall of Seattle, and the next year, 1897, the couple went north to Skagway, the gateway to the Klondike goldfields.
His objective point was the Klondike, but Skagway was booming in those days and he was soon engaged in writing editorials for an embryo newspaper that had been started there.
“Soapy” Smith and his gang reigned supreme at that time, and the law-abiding citizens were beginning to make a noise like they intended to do something to remedy the evils then rampant. What was needed was editorial support on the part of a newspaper. With Major Strong at the helm, that need was adequately supplied.
An emissary of “Soapy” called on the Major and made a proposition. He said that if the Major would “lay off” he
was authorized to say that a hundred dollar bill would be found on the Major’s editorial desk each and every morning. But nothing doing. The editorial attack on the Smith gang only increased in vigor. The result is well known to all old-timers.
In 1899, Major and Mrs. Strong headed for the Klondike. The Major tried prospecting for a while but had no luck. He was soon in newspaper work again, on the Dawson News.
In 1899, he went to Nome, where in the early spring of 1900, he established the Nome Nugget which he ran
successfully for many years.
Leaving Nome, the Major established a newspaper in Iditarod; then went to Katalla and started a newspaper there, and later came outside and established a paper in a mining camp in Arizona.
The call of the North soon found him back in Alaska, where he founded the Alaska Daily Empire in November 1912. He sold this newspaper when he was appointed governor under the Wilson administration.
President Woodrow Wilson nominated Strong to become Governor of Alaska Territory on April 17, 1913. The nomination was in keeping with a 1912 Democratic plank calling for territorial governors to be area residents. The new governor was sworn into office on May 21, 1913.
Soon after becoming governor, Strong was faced with a financial crisis. The territory's salmon canneries, claiming the recently enacted tax on canned salmon was illegal, refused to pay. The tax was a major source of income for the territory and the lack of funds thus created severely limited Strong's ability to implement development projects. This issue continued until after the governor left office.
Significant legislation signed into law by Governor Strong included the granting of United States citizenship to members of the indigenous population that gave up tribal life, implementation of workers' compensation, and the United States' first old age pension, authorization of a territorial university, and creation of a Board of Education.
Additionally, in 1917, the voters in the territory approved a prohibition referendum. Other changes affecting the territory were the authorization for construction of the Alaska Railroad in October 1914, loosening of federal controls on road building and coal mining, and creation of Mount McKinley National Park in 1917.
President Wilson declined to reappoint Strong to a second term as governor and his final day in office came in April 1918. According to U.S. Senator, and Alaskan history expert, Ernest Gruening this was because the President has been given information indicating the Canadian-born Strong had never been naturalized as a United States Citizen.
J.F.A. Strong died in Seattle, Washington, July 27, 1929.
Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 2 p 309-310, by Ed Ferrell (May 1, 2009
Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 3 p 282-283, by Ed Ferrell (May 1, 2009
John Franklin Alexander Strong (October 15, 1856 – July 27, 1929) was a British North America-born journalist who was the second governor of Alaska Territory from 1913 to 1918.
John Franklin Alexander Strong was born in Salmon Creek,[citation needed] a small farming community in Queens County, New Brunswick, British North America on October 15, 1856, the son of Adam Robert and Janet (Nicholl) Strong. He graduated from the New Brunswick Normal School in 1874. After graduation he spent the next fourteen years working as a store owner and teacher throughout the province. On December 31, 1879, he married Elizabeth A. Aitkens of Fredericton, New Brunswick. The marriage produced three children: Jane, Elizabeth, and Robert. He committed bigamy[1] in 1896 when he wed Anna Hall of Tacoma, Washington.[2]
Gruening Cabin
Built during the summer of 1947, the Ernest Gruening Cabin is located at Mile 26 Glacier Highway, northwest of downtown Juneau. Gruening leased the 4.9 acre tract of land on which the cabin stands from the U.S. Forest Service in 1946, under provisions of the Small Tract Act of 1935, and later received title to it.
The cabin is oriented with a view to the west and overlooks Favorite Channel of Lynn Canal in southeast Alaska. The northeastern edge of the property is bordered by Salt Lake, where a low waterfall empties into Eagle Harbor. The southern boundary adjoins Amalga Harbor Road.
In 1947, Ernest Gruening, Territorial Governor of Alaska from 1939 to 1953, had a one-and-one-half story cabin built at a site twenty-six miles north of downtown Juneau. Malcolm MacKay was the architect, Fred Jacobsen and Hunt Gruening built it. The cabin is the only building in Alaska, other than the Governor's Mansion, directly associated with Gruening.
During his years in Alaska, Gruening fought for statehood, for a strong military presence in Alaska, and for more equal treatment of all Alaskans. In the spring of 1953 when President Eisenhower appointed a new territorial governor, Dorothy and Ernest Gruening moved from the Governor's Mansion to the cabin.
The cabin served as Gruening's principal residence from 1953 until November 1958 when Alaskans elected him one of their first U.S. Senators and he moved to Washington, D.C.
In his 1974 eulogy of Ernest Gruening, Carey McWilliams observed, "The persona never engulfed the self with Ernest Gruening. The public citizen and the private person were one and the same . . . and few Americans of his generation had a richer or more varied experience in public affairs. He was a man of impeccable honor and integrity, indomitable spirit and extraordinary moral courage . . . and, more than any one person, was responsible for the successful drive to acquire statehood . . . for Alaska." (The Nation. Julv 20, 1974, pp. 36-37).
Ernest Gruening was born in 1887 in New York City. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1912, but never practiced medicine. Instead, he pursued a career in journalism, and was managing editor of The New York Tribune newspaper and The Nation.
In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Gruening to be the first director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions in the Department of the Interior.
Gruening served in this position until his appointment as governor of the Territory of Alaska in 1939.
Gruening first visited Alaska in May 1936, to deliver the commencement address at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. On his tour through southeast, southcentral, and interior Alaska, Gruening noted the lack of adequate health facilities, inadequate harbors and housing, separate school systems for white and native children, and the high shipping costs between Seattle and Alaska. His interest in helping the territory get the many necessary and basic services it lacked led to his appointment as territorial governor.
As governor, Gruening pushed statehood for Alaska. He addressed the concerns expressed by members of Congress and the Department of the Interior; spearheading a personal income tax bill to show that Alaskans were willing to pay for state government, encouraging the Territorial Legislature to create a statehood commission, and promoting economic development.
Recognizing the strategic importance of Alaska in the war against Japan— and the development and revenue military activity would bring to the territory, Gruening
campaigned exhaustively for construction of air bases in Alaska. He termed Alaska the "first line of defense" for America and organized the Alaska Territorial Guard. After World War II, Gruening fought for continued military involvement in Alaska.
He also worked to end discrimination against Alaska Natives, and to get funding to combat tuberculosis that was epidemic in Alaska.
In 1953, the new Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced Gruening as territorial governor. Gruening moved from the Governor's Mansion and to his cabin. There he continued to advocate Alaska statehood and tirelessly wrote articles for national magazines and newspapers. His 606-page book. The State of Alaska, was published in 1954. The State of Alaska chronicles Alaska's history and advocates statehood for Alaska. One reviewer wrote that the book "presented a powerful argument for statehood, [and] was undoubtedly written with that purpose in view. The case it makes is all the more compelling because it is predicated not upon an
emotional plea by one whose emotions are so surely involved, but rather upon a relentless review of facts which expose with dramatic clarity the disheartening effect of Governmental neglect, confusion, and bureaucracy on the one hand and exploitation by powerful economic interests on the other" (Saturday Review. February 12, 1955, p. 17).
Alaska achieved statehood on January 3, 1959. It took the combined efforts of many Alaskans, but Gruening was one of the chief architects and a
seemingly tireless crusader.
While he was territorial governor and after, Gruening entertained many notable guests at the cabin, among them presidential aspirant Adlai Stevenson, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, novelist Edna Ferber, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and Senator John F. Kennedy.
Although away from the cabin quite a bit promoting statehood, the Gruenings lived there from 1953 until 1958, when Alaskans elected Gruening as one of the first
United States Senators from the new State of Alaska. After they moved to Washington, D.C., the couple visited the cabin whenever they were in the state. A
fter his death in 1974, Gruening's ashes were scattered on the mountain behind the cabin, now named Mount Gruening. The family owned the cabin until 1989 when the State of Alaska purchased the property for an historic park.