Digital Bob Archive

George T. Snow and his family arrived in Juneau aboard the sidewheel cruise ship Olympian on her maiden voyage on the Alaska run. The date was April 24, 1887, and for the next 23 years he was \"Mr. Theater\" in Alaska and Yukon Territory.
He was a playwright and he could act, direct, stage manage and paint scenery.
Often he did all five for a single production.

There are conflicting records as to Snow's birth but they agree that it was on July 4, in either 1846 or 1848 and in either Boston or New York. He went into show business at an early age, fought in the Civil War, then moved to California with a theatrical stock company. There he married Anna Edes Rablen and they had two children: Montgomery, born in February, 1882, and Crystal, born in May, 1884. The family then moved first to Port Townsend, Washington Territory, and then to Victoria, British Columbia, where Snow was operating a theater when Herman Hart asked him to come to Juneau to manage the new Opera House he was building.

If the Snow family was disappointed that construction of the Juneau Opera House had barely begun, they made the most of it. Four nights later, on April 28, they all appeared in \"Rip Van Winkle\" at Hart's somewhat dingy old Palace Theater at the corner of Second and Franklin. Montgomery was just past 5, Crystal not quite 3. \"It was the largest audience ever assembled in Juneau,\" said The Alaska Free Press, and \"a pleasant evening, spent in a pure and moral way.?

\"Pure Gold\" was the next offering, but for this the cast included \"a brother of George T. Snow, a lady artist and a musician.\" The brother was J.A. Snow, an athlete as well as an actor. The lady artist and the musician were not named. At the end of June, George Snow was painting scenery for the Opera House. His work, said the paper, \"shows the hands of an artist.\"

The Opera House saloon, which probably was on the lower floor with the opening from Seward Street, had commenced business on July 4; the theater opened on the 23rd with \"The Wrestling Angel.\" The arrangements must have been somewhat makeshift because the footlights did not arrive until a week later. Then there were \"new patent footlights, border lights, and beautiful carpets, all shipped from Chicago.\" Evidently these were kerosene lights, as in December, 1894, there was an announcement that \"The row of electric lights put in at the Opera house for foot lights is a great improvement over the coal oil variety.\"

\"The Wrestling Angel\" was followed by \"Bon Bons\" and \"The Cigar Girl of Cuba, or The American Miner,\" which the Free Press said was \"A celebrated drama, according to eastern papers.\" In August the \"Nass River Troupe\" of Tsimshean Indian jugglers, acrobats and sleight-of-hand artists made several appearances. One member of the troupe, C.P. Burton, was also a wrestler and a match was arranged on the Opera House stage with a local man, E.O. Decker, who won in two straight falls.

The Opera House was off to a good start as Juneau's entertainment center.