Digital Bob Archive

The Circle City Hotel on Third Street was an especial favorite of the miners who in early years came out from the Interior each fall to winter in Juneau, Tenakee Springs, Sitka and other places on the coast. They customarily rented a hotel room or a cabin and spent the winters playing cards, including such favorites as pinochle and solo.

The hotel was built by George Miller and Lockie MacKinnon, both of whom would later serve on the Juneau City Council. Miller, born in Germany and a butcher by trade, had come to Juneau in 1887 and in 1895 he owned the People's Market at Third and Franklin. MacKinnon, a miner who came to Juneau from his native Nova Scotia in 1886, had been north to the Fortymile country and was much impressed by the new discovery on Birch Creek which resulted in the founding of Circle City. When MacKinnon returned to Juneau in 1895, he and Miller decided to build a hotel on Third Street, next to the meat market. There was only 33 feet of space between the market and B.M. Behrends' store, but the lot was nearly 100 feet deep and the building they put up was three stories high. \"Circle City\" was a magic name at that time, just as \"Klondike\" was a little later, so they had no difficulty picking a name.

The hotel opened on February 22, 1896, with 62 rooms, full dining room and a bar. It was described as \"the largest and best furnished hotel in Alaska, with board and lodging at $1 per day.\" More rooms were added, for a total of 80, by extending the third floor over the top of the meat market building. MacKinnon ran the hotel; Miller went off to the newly discovered Klondike with a mixed herd of cattle and sheep, then turned to prospecting and was one of the discoverers of the Atlin gold district.

Some of the Interior placer miners who wintered at the Circle City came back year after year, and it may have been one of them who penned this tribute to the place:

My Home at the Circle City Hotel
I have wandered in the desert
And I mushed across the plain,
I have hiked through the mountains
Behind a burro train.
I have lived in tents and cabins,
I have slept upon the ground,
But my home at the Circle City
Is the best I have ever found.

There are four more hand-wrought verses, which won't be inflicted upon the readers of Info-Juno but which may be found in The Daily Alaska Dispatch for March 3, 1911.

MacKinnon sold his interest in the hotel in 1901 and Miller sold his in 1906. Mrs. Mary Bergmann operated it for a number of years, then built her own hotel in 1913. Billy Short, a widely known hotel man from Ketchikan, then took it over until 1922, when it closed. The building was razed in 1924.