Digital Bob Archive

FROM SITKA, II:

The mining camp that eventually became the city of Juneau was to a substantial degree an offspring of the long-established town of Sitka. Joe Juneau and Dick Harris. who staked the first mining claims in Silver Bow Basin, came from Sitka and were grubstaked by two Sitka men, a mining engineer and a merchant. Some 70 or 80 miners who had moved to Sitka from the Cassiar district of British Columbia in 1879, traveled to the new camp on Gastineau Channel late in 1880 or early in 1881.

A number of Sitka businessmen followed the miners, including Dave Martin, Lezar Caplan and Patrick Corcoran, merchants; James Schmeig, druggist; Charles Wells, blacksmith, and Charles Morse, saloonkeeper. The Cohen family of Sitka built Juneau's first brewery and the town's first postmaster, Edward deGroff, had begun his long Alaska career in Sitka.

And it was primarily people who had come from Sitka who were responsible for establishing the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. Quite a number of the men who migrated from Sitka to Juneau had married Sitka women of Russian descent who were communicants of the Russian Orthodox Church. For some years after Juneau was founded a priest from St. Michael's Cathedral in Sitka traveled occasionally to the new town to hold services. That was less than satisfactory to the Juneau women and after a time they began to push for a chapel and a resident priest.

In those years, before there was a city government in Juneau, many projects were carried out by popular subscription. The Evergreen Cemetery is one example.

A Russian Church for Juneau became a community project and many business firms and individuals contributed to a building fund. Two building lots on Fifth Street were purchased from the miners who owned them. There was a log cabin on one lot and it was torn down and a contract was let for the construction of the church. There was not enough money in the first round to complete the job, but the following year additional money was raised and the belfry was added.

It is that kind of information about early Juneau that it has been my pleasure to unearth from the Alaska Historical Library ever since 1931 when I first delved into its resources for information on the history of the Juneau Public Library. During the past five and a half years I have tried, in this department, to pass along some of that information to readers of Info-Juno.

As I mentioned last week, the difficulty of carrying on the department from my present home in Sitka outweighs my desire to continue it. To my readers, however, I strongly recommend my successor, Mrs. Patricia Rappel and her column entitled Golden Glimpses, who has written much about Southeastern Alaska, including her most recent book, \"Fortunes from the Earth - A History of the Base and Industrial Minerals of Southeastern Alaska.\"