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

ALASKA TALES---BOBBY BENSON & THE ALASKA STATE FLAG

The Alaska Flag

In 1926 Alaska was nearing its 60th year under the U.S. flag when Alaska Gov. George A. Parks on a trip to a Post Office in Washington saw that the Territory of Alaska had no flag.  He decided it was time the territory had its own official flag. Governor Parks thought that the Alaska Chapter of the American Legion would be a good place to go for advice on a flag.  The Legion leaders came up with a great idea; have a flag design contest among Alaska's schoolchildren in grades 7 through 12.

More than 700 flags were designed by school kids before the best 142 selected by schools and communities all over the huge, sparsely populated territory were sent to Juneau for the final judging. Many of those original flag designs are part of the American Legion Collection now held by the Alaska State Museum in Juneau. If your ship makes a Juneau port call the State Museum is a worthwhile stop.

The eventual winning design was drawn by a 13 year old boy who was a student at what was called a Territorial School at Seward, near the tip of the Kenai Peninsula.  I guess you could call the winner, a kid named Benny Benson, a true Alaskan because he was the son of a father from Sweden and a mother with Aleut and Russian ancestry.  They were also dirt poor which was no surprise in those days. 

Alaskan Family at around Benny's Time

Benny had a hard life right from the beginning.  His mother died when he was three and his father could not cope with bringing up Benny and his siblings on his own.  The family home at Chignik, also on the Kenai, was broken up and Benny and his brother Carl were sent out to the Aleutian Island of Unalaska to an orphanage. Don’t forget;  Benny was three years old and his first Alaskan cruise was a bit less deluxe than what we experience today.  It was on an old steam/sail schooner that took about a week for the 800 mile trip.  That would be maybe two days on a modern ship.

The Unalaska orphanage closed and Benny and got shipped back to the Kenai to the Seward Territorial School, another orphanage.  He was now 5. 

Benny Benson submitted several designs for the contest, including one with Mount McKinley as the central feature; another included a dog team and the year 1867, when the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia. For his winning design, however, Benson used blue paint and construction paper, placing the Big Dipper and North Star (the Ursa Major constellation) against a blue background. He cut the colored flag out and glued it to his entry.  On the same page he wrote what the flag meant to him.   His handwritten notes on the art say: "The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the foret-me-not [sic], an Alaskan flower. The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the union. The Dipper is for the Great Bear, symbolising strenth [sic]."

Benny's Entry with later picture

How is that for what today we would call the work of a throwaway kid?

More on Benny and the Alaskan Flag in the next posting.

Benny and his Hand Made Flag