Digital Bob Archive

Three large wooden apartment buildings - they were known as flats in those days - were constructed on the lower side of Calhoun Avenue and Dixon Street, between Fourth and Sixth Streets, during the building boom of 1912-1914. They provided housing for a good many people and, over the years, they provided a good deal of work for the Juneau Volunteer Fire Department. Ultimately two of them were destroyed by fire; the third died of old age.

The first to go up was Hogan's Flats, next door to the J.M. Giovanetti's store which is now the Knight Apartments. Hogan soon sold the apartments and they were called the Juneau Flats. Still later they were sold again, this time to Sam Feldon who renamed them the Feldon Apartments.

The second place to be constructed was just south of Fifth Street and occupied a portion of the area now covered by the State Office Building parking garage. It was named the Seaview and survived into the late 1950s when it was torn down.

The last of the three to be built was the Cliff Apartments which were aptly named as they hung on the hillside below the present Kendler Apartments and extended to some of the area now covered by the State Office Building. N.W. Bowen was the owner and the building included 24 two-rooms and bath apartments.

The Cliff was the first of the three buildings to suffer a fire loss. That occurred on June 2, 1928, when it was owned by Mr. and Mrs. H.G. Welch. Fire broke out at 2 o'clock in the morning in a coal and wood storage room in the center of the building on the second floor and it got a good start before it was discovered by one of the tenants, Miss Henrietta Sully. Six hose lines were strung and 25 firemen fought the blaze, managing to save much of the building but not the personal possessions of many of the occupants.

Sam Feldon, who owned the Feldon Apartments just up the street, bought what was left of the Cliff and commenced to rebuild it, but on August 8, only two months after the Cliff fire, a 4 a.m. blaze broke out in the Feldon. The 57 tenants fled with what they could grab and that, for most of them, was very little. The volunteer firemen fought the blaze for four hours and managed to save the Giovanetti Grocery next door but not the Feldon itself. It was a total loss.

Feldon did rebuild the Cliff Apartments, adding five apartments for a total of 27. He then sold the place to Mr. and Mrs. Garland Boggan and a few years later built the new Feldon Apartments just above the Cliff. That building is now known as the Kendler.

The second Cliff fire occurred during the evening of February 6, 1943. Two floors were burned away completely and the third was badly damaged and was later razed. Twenty-two of the 27 apartments were occupied and 57 people were left homeless, while the flames threatened the Boggan home next door.

Most of the ground that was occupied by the three buildings remains vacant today.