Digital Bob Archive

Josiah M. \"Si\" Tanner, an old-time lawman, was for a third of a century a resident of Juneau and Skagway. He was born in 1850 at Pontiac, Michigan, where his father was warden of the state penitentiary. When he was 21 he married Miss Juliete Valentine, sister of Emery Valentine, a longtime Juneau resident. The Tanners moved from Michigan to Colorado, then to Iowa where he was sheriff of Dunlap County for several years. The Tanners then moved to Tacoma, Washington, where he was in business until the failure of a bank left him broke. He worked as a deputy sheriff for a year or so, then came to Juneau in 1894.

In Juneau, Tanner worked as a wharfinger, then ran a general store owned by his brother-in-law. When the Klondike rush started, Tanner went to Skagway and operated a lighterage business in partnership with Valentine. In 1898 he headed the posse that cleaned out the Soapy Smith gang after Soapy himself had been killed by Frank Reid. After things settled down, Tanner opened a hardware store and plumbing shop.

When Alaska became a territory in 1912, Tanner ran for the Senate on a Non-partisan ticket that included H.T. Tripp of Juneau and William Stubbins of Douglas. All three were elected and Tanner drew the long term and served in the 1913 and 1915 sessions. In 1916 he again ran for the senate, this time as a Democrat, but was defeated by J.R. Heckman of Ketchikan. Tanner was running his business in Skagway in 1917 when he was suddenly called back into law enforcement.

In Juneau, Edward Krause had been charged with several murders and other crimes and was convicted before Judge R.W. Jennings and by him was sentenced to hang on May 11. On the night of April 12, however, Krause escaped from the old federal jail on the hill where the State Office Building now stands. He did this by sawing through, over a long period of time, two of the bars in the \"tank,\" then bending the bars and crawling through the hole while the guard was tending the furnace. Krause was killed several days later, but meanwhile U.S. Marshal Harry Bishop resigned on April 13. The next day Judge Jennings named Si Tanner to the office, an interim appointment.

On Tanner's first day on the job, the court was hearing a civil case when suddenly there was a great clanging and banging from the jail in the nether region of the building; so much noise that Judge Jennings had to bang his gavel and stop the trial. He angrily sent the bailiff to learn the cause and as soon told that Marshal Tanner was using an eight-pound sledge hammer to test all of the bars in the jail.

No other sawed bars were found and the tests soon ended. President Wilson made Tanner's appointment permanent and he served in the office until the change of administration in 1921. He then returned to Skagway. Both Si and Juliette Tannner died in 1927, leaving a son and two daughters, all residents of Skagway.