Digital Bob Archive

The Alaska Historical Library, a part of the State Library in the State Office Building, is seldom mentioned as a visitor attraction. But researchers do come to Juneau especially to use this library, and they frequently stay days and even weeks.

Father of the library was Senator Thomas Henry Carter of Montana who in 1900 wrote into the new civil code for Alaska a section creating an Historical Library and Museum. He also provided for a \"district historical library fund\" into which would go the $10 fee collected from each new member of the bar and each notary, the fund to be used to purchase books, periodicals, \"and such other matter of historical interest as the governor may consider valuable and appropriate for such collection.\"

In 1900, according to Governor John Brady, there was already a library of 1200 bound volumes and many unbound volumes, pamphlets, charts and maps, assembled by the various governors. And those were boom times in Alaska and the library fund grew rapidly so that it was possible to buy many early works at reasonable prices.

The Historical Library, over the years, has withstood a good deal of moving around. It was first in the old Russian log building that housed the governor's office in Sitka. In 1906 Governor Hoggatt moved the office to a small dwelling on Main Street in Juneau in which there was no room for the library, so it was placed in the Sheldon Jackson Museum and remained there until 1911. That year the federal government bought the old Presbyterian Mission building on Fifth Street near Main for executive offices, and the library was brought from Sitka and installed there.

In 1923 the Territory purchased the Garside Building, where the Log Cabin now stands, for a museum, and a part of the Historical Library was moved there, Because the old Mission was such a firetrap, the remainder of the library collection went into storage in the basement of the Governor's House on Calhoun Avenue.

When the Federal and Territorial Building was completed in 1931, the Historical Library and the museum were united in the west wing of the second floor. After 1959, when the building became the State Capitol, the west wing was remodeled into a Senate chamber and rooms. The museum moved to the Masonic Temple while part of the library went to the basement of the Juneau Memorial Library and the rest of it into storage. Later, what had been the post office on the first floor of the Capitol was made available for both the State Library and the Historical Library. The next move was in 1974 to its eighth location, on the eighth level of the new State Office Building.

The collections have continued to grow and today the Alaska Historical Library is afflicted with its longstanding problem: inadequate space for the priceless reference materials it houses.