Digital Bob Archive

For more than seventy-three years it has been sitting up there on what used to be known as Swede Hill, above Gastineau Avenue, a sizeable structure of concrete. There have been questions and speculation about what is, fairly obviously, the foundation for something to be built, or of something that was built and has now disappeared, by fire or other means.

In the summer of 1913 the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company was completing its haulage tunnel through a shoulder of Mount Roberts, and was finishing its main working tunnel and getting ready to build a test mill on the hillside south of town. All of that activity sparked a building boom along the southerly reaches of what was then Lower Front Street where there had been only a few shacks before. But that story will be told another time.

It was in September, 1913, that the mining company's general superintendent, R.A. Kinzie, announced that he was ready to let a contract for construction of the main administration building, on Gastineau Avenue below the portal of the haulage tunnel. The building would be three stories high and measure approximately 52 by 120 feet.

The bottom floor would have a lobby, the general offices, engineers' offices, vaults, change rooms with baths, bed chambers with baths, store rooms and furnace room.

On the second floor there would be a living room, dining room, kitchen, and five bedrooms with baths. The top floor would have eight bedrooms, each with a bath.

\"The entire building will be modern in every respect,\" Superintendent Kinzie told The Alaska Daily Empire. \"It will be fitted and furnished to be as comfortable as money can make it.\"

There was to be a broad veranda on the west side of the building with what was described as \"a beautiful view of the city and Gastineau Channel.\"

There was evidently some fear among Juneau merchants that the building might be used to house a company store. While on a visit here near the end of September, 1913, F.W. Bradley, the company president, took pains to announce that there would be no company store and that there would be no company boarding house for mill employees. He did say that four cottages were planned near the administration building for staff members.

There was also a plan, Bradley said, to extend Gastineau Avenue southward to the site of the mill. He did not say whether the mining company or the city was going to build the extension.

Forms for the concrete of the first floor were under construction by October 24, and concrete was being poured in November. On December 18 The Empire carried a very brief news item: \"The foundation walls of the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company administration building are finished and will be allowed to season for a time before the frame superstructure is begun.\"

There was no further announcement. The walls are still seasoning.