Digital Bob Archive

The Juneau Spirit, it has been suggested, is something we should all acquire in large helpings. The suggestion appears harmless, but the experience of another city points up a danger. It was back in 1907 that Seattle was just getting geared up for its first world fair and in the enthusiasm of the moment adopted a slogan, \"Get the Seattle Spirit.\" One of its daily papers, the Post Intelligencer ran a contest for the best paragraph explaining just what the Seattle Spirit was.

At that time there was great rivalry between Seattle and Tacoma, for one thing over whether a certain peak should be called Mount Tacoma or Mount Rainier.
When Seattle adopted its new slogan, the editors of Tacoma papers saw an opportunity, and they pounced on it. They began calling Seattle \"the Spirit City.\" That caught on all over the country and appeared frequently in Alaska newspapers. Southbound Alaskans instead of announcing that they were \"going below,\" as had been the custom, said they were going to the Spirit City.

The whole thing was hilarious to everyone except Seattleites who did what they could to purge media use of the nickname. They began, for one thing, to call Seattle the Queen City, but the ghostly image hung around for many a year.

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The Governor's Mansion on Calhoun Avenue was first opened to the public with a reception on January 1, 1913. That happened to be the same day a new law became effective creating the U.S. Parcel Post system. Both the mansion and the system have been overhauled several times since, the mansion perhaps more effectively than the parcel system.

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Public school classrooms have often been at a premium in Juneau, and perhaps never more so than during the first half of the year 1913. That was a boom time in Juneau and the 1887 school building on 5th Street had overflowed. There was little vacant space in town, but at the corner of Second and Seward Streets stood the McGrath Building. In September, 1911, fire had destroyed the Juneau Hotel next door. Much of the upper story of the McGrath Building was burned away and the lower part was gutted. Nothing had been done to the building by the late months of 1912 when the Juneau School Board, in desperation, began repairs. A roof was put on and the first floor was repaired and divided into two classrooms. When school opened for the second semester, in January, 1912, the fifth and sixth grades moved to those temporary quarters and remained there until school closed in June. By September, when school reopened, the main school building had been enlarged and the McGrath Building reverted to commercial purposes. It still stands today, occupied by an electronics store, a barber shop and a specialty clothing shop.