Digital Bob Archive

The father of the Juneau Cold Storage. That was how they referred to Oliver Drange at the time of his death in 1940.

Drange was born in Norway on December 19, 1870, and came to the United States at the age of 22. In the late 1890s he came to Gastineau Channel and went to work for the Treadwell Gold Mining Company. At that time the halibut fishing businss was just getting a start in this area. Except for a small local demand, fishermen had to ship their catches, packed in ice, to Seattle, and that was a bothersome and uncertain business.

About 1900 Drange thought there might be an opportunity for a halibut buyer in Juneau and he moved across the channel and installed a small float at the foot of Main Street. It was a business with some risks; prices fluctuated wildly on the Seattle market, from a high of around 9 cents a pound to a low of 2 cents. The high was rarely achieved, and the lows were all too frequent and barely paid the freight bills. Many fishermen still preferred to ship their own catches and take their chances on the Seattle market, but an increasing number sold to Drange.

The business grew and he took in two partners, Martin Holst and Ole Orson, and they formed the Juneau Fish & Ice Company. Holst, who had fished halibut, turned his attention to bait herring and the company offered an assured bait supply. Orson, a boatman, spent much of this time chasing icebergs and bringing back chunks to feed the chipping machine. Juneau's halibut fleet continued to grow. In a seven week period in the fall of 1912 the company shipped 200,000 pounds of halibut to Seattle and 300,000 pounds were shipped by fishermen.

Shipments of that magnitude within a short time, added to shipments from Petersburg and Ketchikan and to increasing catches by large steamboats operating out of Seattle, tended to drive the price of halibut to low levels. It was becoming obvious that maintaining Juneau's position as a halibut fishing port depended upon getting a local cold storage. A Chicago firm was building a plant at Sitka, Ketchikan seemed likely to get a second cold storage, and there were rumors that the Glacier Fish Company of Tacoma was considering putting a floating plant in Icy Strait, the heart of Juneau's fishing grounds.

Oliver Drange proposed to the City Council that it provide a site for a cold storage which the Juneau Fish & Ice Company would build and operate. He and his partners took in a fourth man, John F. Malony, lawyer, Juneau resident since 1885 and former mayor, who had a finger or two in several local enterprises including the Alaska Electric Light & Power Company and the Juneau Ferry and Navigation Company. He became the chief negotiator.

The issue was debated at what were described as \"torrid\" council meetings.
Some taxpayers objected to city assistance to a private business and a number of fishermen wanted a cold storage but did not want it owned by the Juneau Fish & Ice Company. An interesting agreement was finally hammered out and will be detailed next week.