Digital Bob Archive

Yore, for the purpose of this department, starts on October 4, 1880, the day gold was discovered at Silver Bow Basin, and may run to as recently as the week before last.

Sometimes the question is asked: \"When did Juneau become the capital of the Territory of Alaska?\" That's an easy one. It was August 24, 1912. But the answer is less clear cut if the question is: \"When did the capital move here from Sitka?\" The Organic Act of May 17, 1884, established Sitka as \"the temporary seat of government\" of the District of Alaska, and it never was spelled out that it was the capital. A quibbling answer would be that the capital didn't move, but something did move from Sitka to Juneau. The question is, when?

Congress said in a new law which was effective on June 6, 1900: \"The temporary seat of government of said district is hereby established at Juneau, provided that the seat of government shall remain at Sitka until suitable grounds and buildings thereon shall be obtained by purchase or otherwise at Juneau.\" Congress does like to keep things indefinite.

The then governor, John Brady, had been a Sitka resident since 1878 and he was not about to look for grounds and buildings in Juneau. The U.S. District Court was already holding most of its sessions in Juneau and the District Judge and the U.S. Marshal and their assistants moved here in 1900. That brought half a dozen men, some of them with families, to Juneau.

The Collector of Customs and his small staff moved from Sitka to Juneau in 1904, transferring four additional men.

Governor Brady resigned under some pressure early in 1906 and President Roosevelt appointed Wilford B. Hoggatt, a former Navy officer who was the superintendent of the Jualin Mine at Berners Bay. He assumed office at Sitka on May 1, then returned to Juneau and started on a northern trip. On July 23 the Attorney General in Washington approved the move from Sitka and upon his return to Juneau the governor found two dwellings on Main Street, between 5th and 6th, that could be rented. Both were owned by the Last Chance Mining Co. One, an imposing three-story house with 30 rooms, became the Governor's Mansion; the smaller one, just down the hill, the office.

Governor Hoggatt picked William H. Loller of Juneau as his secretary and Loller went to Sitka to pack up the files and some of the furniture and some 3,000 books of the Alaska Historical Library. These all came to Juneau on the mail boat Georgia and arrived here on September 8, 1906. That is the date, it is generally agreed, that the seat of government moved to Juneau.

Since Hoggatt and Loller were both Juneau men, the move of the governor's office did not require moving any people.

There was still one office remaining in Sitka, the Land Office, headed by the surveyor general of Alaska with seven employees. The office of surveyor general had been created in 1897. Until then, the clerk of the District Court had been the ex-officio secretary of Alaska, the man who acted as governor under certain circumstances. In 1897 the surveyor general was made the ex-officio secretary of Alaska, and when the governor's office moved to Juneau, it was necessary that he follow. He did so in October, 1906, with all seven employees and their families.

Finally, on August 24, 1912, in the Organic Act that created the Territory of Alaska, Juneau was named as the capital.