Digital Bob Archive

James \"Big Jim\" McCloskey of The Germania went into a rage that June day in 1913 when he learned that Al Carlson at The Louvre had dropped the price of beer from 10 cents to 5 cents a glass. \"You can't do that,\" Jim roared, \"and I'm going to stop you.\"

Carlson laughed. \"I can sell 5 cent beer and throw in a free lunch, and if you can't meet it, that's your problem.\"

Bar licenses in those years were issued by the clerk of the District Court and were due for renewal on July 1, so Big Jim stormed up to the Court House to tell his troubles to Judge Robert Jennings.

\"Carlson has reduced the price of beer, thereby increasing consumption,\" he told the judge. \"The increase is causing more drunkeness on the city streets and The Louvre has become a public nuisance. You should deny it a license renewal.\"

The judge had a sense of humor. \"On those grounds, maybe I should deny all the licenses.\"

Big Jim returned to Front Street and he and Carlson went into conference. The next day beer went back to 10q: a glass except that if you laid down two-bits you got a glass of beer and either 15 cents or two bingles, each worth one glass of beer.

The Germania sounds like a strange name for a saloon run by an Irishman, but it began life as the Germania Beer Hall, owned by John Rega. Jim McCloskey, who was born in 1865 near Madison, Wisconsin, but whose father was born in Ireland, apparently saw no reason to change the name when he acquired it soon after the turn of the century. Jim and his brother John first came to Juneau from Butte, Montana in 1896 to work in the mines. Around 1899 they brought their families to Juneau: Jim had a wife and sons Eugene and James; John had a wife and daughter, Nell.

After the brothers bought the Germania, Jim was the manager, John the bartender. The two families lived on the side of what was known as Swede Hill, up the stairs at the east end of First Street. In the-summers of 1911 and 1912 they hired a manager to run The Germania while they went mining at Atlln in British Columbia and did quite well. Among their investments from the proceeds of that venture was an interest in the Alaskan Hotel.

In 1906 Big Jim was elected to the Juneau City Council and he was reelected the following year. He was always active in the Democratic Party, even when it was out of power both locally and in the Territory. In 1916 the people of Alaska voted out the saloons and when they closed, on January 1, 1918, Jim became a guard at the federal jail. In 1925 and 1926 he served as Juneau's Chief of Police, and after that he became chief guard at the jail. He was also appointed by Governor John Troy to the Board of Trustees of the Alaska Pioneers' Home at Sitka.

In August, 1934, Big Jim became ill. His brother took him south to the Coffey Clinic at Portland, Oregon, but whatever the problem was, it was beyond curing. He died there on September 12 and was buried from the Catholic Church in Juneau on September 22.