George Teal was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.
Teal was born in The Dalles, Oregon May 26, 1866, son of Colonel Joseph Teal and Mary Elizabeth Coleman-Teal. He was still in his infancy when his parents established the family home in Portland. He attended the public schools of that city and afterward was a student at Pacific University at Forrest Grove.
His business career began in his teens when he worked in a Portland hardware store. Afterward he became a freight clerk and purser on the boats plying the Willamette and Columbia Rivers and somewhat later represented the Portland Merchants’ Credit Association in Eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho. During this period he resided in Moscow, Idaho, and Spokane.
In 1898, Mr. Teal went to Dyea, Alaska, to manage for a Portland concern the Dyea-Klondike Company, operating an aerial tram for the transportation of freight from Dyea to the river boats, instead of the laborious pack method then employed.
This enterprise was abandoned upon the completion of the White Pass Railroad from Skagway and Mr. Teal then went to Juneau, where he was employed as bookkeeper and accountant in the town and in some of the camps and settlements of the area.
Mr. Teal returned to the states in 1905 and in 1906 took up residence in Seattle, where he became confidential assistant to J. D. Farrell of the Oregon-Washington Railroad. In this connection his principle responsibilities involved the purchase of the right of way of the company between Seattle and Portland.
In 1912 he resumed his residence in Alaska as manager of the salmon cannery of the Admiralty Trading Company at Gambier Bay. Mr. Teal became a stockholder in this enterprise and his association with its management marked the beginning of his long connection with the salmon canning industry of the Northwest.
When the Admiralty Trading Company sold out its interests in 1914, he became interested in the brokerage side of the industry assumed an influential role in the organization of the Pacific Canned Salmon Brokers Association, later the Canned Salmon Distributors Association. Of this association he became Secretary in 1920 and served it as principal administrative official until 1935, when he retired.
Mr. Teal was also secretary for some years of the Northwest Salmon Canners Association. As it was written of him at his death: “He had taken an active and constructive interest in the salmon industry’s affairs for almost thirty years,”
Mr. Teal maintained his home in Seattle from 1906 onward, except during those intervals when his duties took him to Alaska.
He was a member of the Masons.
He married, on June 2, 1913 in Seattle, Alma Delaney, daughter of Arthur K. and Anna (Wallwork) Delaney.
He died in Seattle on February 3, 1940, after a long illness.
Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 3 p 296-298, by Ed Ferrell, May 1, 200