ALASKA TALES: ANCHORAGE THEN AND NOW

And You Thought Your Boarding Was Tough!

Some of you will be lucky enough to get to Alaska this year or maybe soon.  This magnificent state, called the Great Land by the earliest natives, can be overwhelming.  After all, if you dropped Alaska on the Lower 48, parts of it would go off the edges and it would cover ⅔ rds of the ground area of continental USA.  So, when someone says that there is a lot to see in Alaska, a polite “Duh” is not inappropriate.  In the rush to see Denali, Glaciers, Gold Rush towns and famous sea ports sometimes Anchorage is just a place tourists zoom through on the way to somewhere else.

That’s a shame because Anchorage is the throbbing heart of Alaska.

Recent Commercial View of Downtown

Believe it or not, 4th Street Anchorage 1959

Whether you take a Sea-Land tour or get on or off your ship in the Anchorage area, spend more than a moment to check out this frontier town that pulses with the energy of an adolescent just trying out the new growth and the muscle that goes with it.

Port of Anchorage 1960

AMSTERDAM in Juneau

Capt Cook & Cdr Daley looking over Cook Inlet from the deck at Resolution Park

Some of the Fruits & Veggies at Anchorage's Saturday Market

Twins Stop for a Snack on Anchorage Highway

Blanket Toss in Anchorage 1956

If you are really lucky you might arrive in Anchorage on MS AMSTERDAM, a Holland America ship that actually transits Cook Inlet and ties up in the Port of Anchorage, virtually in the middle of downtown.  Because of the great rise and fall of the tides normal at the end of a long inlet, in the past ships seldom ventured into the port of Anchorage.  Between the tides and the huge amount of silt that gets washed downstream from melting glaciers it was common for unwary mariners to find themselves sitting on a bank of soft, viscous black sandy dirt.  

To capitalize on the boom in ship borne tourism the State of Alaska invested in making the Port of Anchorage more accessible to relatively deep draft ocean going vessels.  I have been bouncing around the port of Anchorage since the first time we lived in Alaska, July 1959, the same year our 2nd child was born there.  Between subsequent business trips, employment interviews, speaking engagements on a variety of cruise ships and visits to our #1 son & family we have enjoyed Alaska and Anchorage ever since that long ago day we first walked across the pier in Whittier.  Rather than just talk or should I say write about it let me show you some pictures that trace the vibrant growth of Anchorage and the Port of Anchorage as we saw it for the past half century.

                          There's Gold In Them Thar Hills

From Mining Camp to Alaska's Capital; Why Juneau is Juneau

Harris & Juneau on a cigar box lid

Between posting the first part of this two parter about the naming of Juneau I thought I would re-read some of the State of Alaska material on our pals, Juneau and Harris.  Hey, maybe I was too hard on these guys.  What looks like the official state history of Gold Mining in Alaska has a great article that makes these gentlemen look like distinguished mining engineers who spent their spare time doing good works for their fellow man when they were not reading the classics.  I guess my version is the unsanitized one.  Official history likes to paint the big names of the past as heroes and not ne’er do wells.

Whatever the official version is, I say Harris and Juneau were just what you would expect in a rough and tough, booze and bimbos, spit in your eye town.

Alaskan Hard Rock Miners

Harris and Juneau went back to what was now called Gold Creek and continued to mine for gold.  Pilz paid his prospectors for most of the rights to the 160 acre mining camp they staked out at the mouth of Gold Creek.  Juneau and Harris hung around the camp and helped establish the first new town in Alaska since the US Congress paid Russia $7.2  million in 1867 for Alaska in the world’s best real estate deal.

Forming the town and managing it were very informal.  No one really cared what the mining camp was called and it had a series of names.  First people called it Harrisburg after Richard Harris.  Then George Pilz got his oar in the water and the camp became Pilzburg.  New on the scene was Lieutenant Commander Charles Rockwell who was either the Executive Officer or Commanding Officer of the USS Jamestown, a US Navy ship. Jamestown was sent to Alaska to show the US flag and act as a stabilizing force in the Wild West atmosphere of the New Frontier.  By the way, LCDR Rockwell must have been a fine fellow because he later became a Rear Admiral.

Rockwell’s position as the civil  authority was honored by changing the name of the town and for a while it was called Rockwell.  I guess Joe Juneau must have felt left out because in 1881 he told all of the miners that he was sponsoring a meeting at one of the town’s gin mills where everyone was going to settle on a name for the town for once and for all.  And by the way, the drinks were on him.

Panning for Gold around Juneau

There were maybe 75 miners and other citizens at the affair and, of course, since Joe Juneau was paying for the booze they didn’t exactly jump right in to the voting thing.  Elections are a thirsty business as any Chicago Alderman or New York City Councilman can attest.

Red Dog Saloon Juneau; our Boys would have loved it

After an appropriately lengthy time to consider the matter the electors decided that the town was to be called Juneau City instead of Harrisburg, which was proposed for a comeback.  The City part got dropped over time and what became first the Territorial Capital and later the State Capital was just plain Juneau, America’s biggest city.

Virtue triumphs once again.

Juneau circa 1895

ALASKA TALES: WHY JUNEAU WAS NAMED JUNEAU

Juneau, looking out Gastineau Channel

Quick.  What is the biggest city in the United States?  Nope to whatever you guessed; it is Juneau Alaska which is bigger than Rhode Island or Delaware.  In fact it is almost as large as both Delaware and Rhode Island.

Actually, you probably guessed correctly since this post is about Juneau but some folks cannot see even the most obvious clue.

What I really want to talk about is why Juneau was even settled and why it is named Juneau.  After all, this city was earlier named Harrisburg, Pilzburg and Rockwell before it was named Juneau.  Rockwell was an Navy Lieutenant Commander who came on the scene after the city was already a going concern.  The other fellows were part of the reason Juneau is where it is.

George Pilz (sometimes spelled Pelz)  was a hustler in Sitka, which in 1880 was a big deal in the new Alaska Territory.  Today polite people call Pilz an entrepreneur  but he was a tough customer who held court in Sitka’s bar & bordello precinct.  He had a standing offer to pay big bucks, $1000 if you can believe some stories, to any local Native Chief who could lead him or his employees to a big find of gold ore.

Joe Juneau, Chief Kowee, Richard Harris

Chief Kowee, an Auke Indian, showed up with some ore and Pilz sent a team out with Kowee to prove out the find.  The first guys didn’t strike gold, they struck out.  Chief Kowee was persistent and convinced Pilz that it was at least worth another try to find the source of the gold ore.  Pilz hired Joe Juneau and Richard Harris, a pair of Good Ol Boys from the local bar scene and outfitted them with tools and rations sufficient to grubstake them for a lengthy search.

Joe and Richard were not what you would call eager beavers and swapped their rations for some hooch, local booze made by the Tlingit Indians of the Hoochinoo tribe.  Hooch.  I am sure you have heard of that.  Hooch was also called Squirrel Whiskey both because it made you nutty and it also made you want to climb a tree.  Juneau and Harris camped out on the beach with their hooch and forgot about the hard work of prospecting.

Chief Kowee remained focused on the reward and ratted out Juneau and Harris to Pilz.  Pilz was not known for his sense of humor. He counseled his hung over miners that their health might suffer if they did not get back in their canoe with the Chief and find that gold.

Alaskan Gold Nuggets

The reluctant miners paddled up a creek to a place called Silver Bow Basin where they found some gold nuggets as big as peas and beans according to a reported comment by Harris. There was also lots of quartz rock with visible streaks of gold.  They hammered away at the rock until they filled their canoe with around 1000 pounds of gold bearing ore and took off.  For Canada, not Sitka.  The whole story about the city of Juneau might have ended there if some of Pilz’ men hadn’t run into the pair and took them and the ore back to Sitka.


More on the founding of Juneau and how it was named after Joe Juneau in my next post

MORE ON BOBBY BENSON & ALASKA'S FLAG

BIG DIPPER & THE NORTH STAR

On May 2, 1927, the Territorial Legislature unanimously passed an act to adopt Benson's design as the official flag. His prize was an engraved watch and $1,000 to pay for a trip to Washington, D.C., with the intent that Benson would present the flag to President Calvin Coolidge in person. When those travel plans did not work out, the Legislature set aside the money for Benson's further education.  As a young man he went to Seattle and used the money to study diesel engines.  That got him out of subsistence fishing and into a life’s work as a mechanic.

Alaska's new flag of blue and gold silk first flew over the Jesse Lee Home in Unalaska on July 9, which is now recognized annually as Alaska Flag Day. During the special ceremony, Benson received his gold watch, which had been engraved with the flag design. As an adult, Benson made his home in Kodiak, where he raised two daughters and became a grandfather. Occasionally he made and signed replicas of the flag that he designed. The last one he made, at age 58, is now on display at the Alaskan Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. Benny, always a modest and humble man, gave his watch to an Alaskan Museum as well.

Anchorage in 1972

Benson worked as a master carpenter and as an airplane mechanic for Kodiak Airways from 1950 until his death on July 2, 1972. Having achieved celebrity at such a young age, Benson nonetheless is remembered on Kodiak as an unassuming man.

 

Big News in the Newest State

In 1959 the United States Congress formally made Alaska the 49th State of the United States.  The beauty and deeply felt spirit of Benny's Alaskan Territory flag was recognized by the new state and Benny's flag became the official flag of the new state.

Benny and the Governor

Anchorage's Benson Boulevard is named for him, as well as an Anchorage High School.  It is more like a special education vocational technology school rather than an academic school. In Kodiak, Benny Benson Drive honors their longtime resident.  There is even a variety of Kodiak wild grass named Benson Beach Wild Rye.  Ironically, the High School named for this big-hearted orphan is a school is for troubled kids and has within it a middle school for truants, dropouts and other of society's “bad” kids.

Once Benny's Home Ground

If you are on a ship that calls in Seward take a few moments to visit the Bobby Benson monument.  It is not an overwhelming place.  In fact, when I first saw it I said to myself “So this is it. Maybe it ought to be a bit more grand.”  Then I realized that it was completely consistent with Bobby; kind of just there but solid and done in the non-ostentatious Alaskan mainstream way.




Seward warmly remembers the young boy whose love for Alaska is reflected in the beauty of the flag. The monument erected in Benny Benson's honor is at Mile 1.4 of the Seward Highway. The roadside park is near the entrance to the town, across from the small boat harbor. In 1964, following the massive destruction of the Good Friday Earthquake, the Jesse Lee Home for Orphans moved again, from Seward to Anchorage. In 1970, it merged with Lutheran Youth Services and the Anchorage Christian Children's Home to create Alaska Children's Services. Since 1991, ACS has hosted Alaska Flag Day activities. Festivities on Alaska Flag Day retell the story of how one young boy forever left his mark on his homeland, Alaska, The Great Land.

Benny's Love of Alaska Still Waves Everyday