Digital Bob Archive

Between 1885, when the federal government established public schools in Alaska, and 1890, when Alaska towns were permitted to incorporate and assume some of the burden of school support, the Congress appropriated a total of $415,000 for the support of Alaska public schools. By 1899 there were 21 such schools, and the appropriation for that year was only $30,000 with an enrollment of 1,723 pupils.

The two Juneau schools, one for whites and one for Natives, were probably as pinched for funds as any others, and the total enrollment, particularly in School No. 1, the school for whites, was increasing. In 1893, the last year in which both schools were housed in the building on Fifth Street, the white enrollment was 25; the next year it was 54, and it increased in subsequent years to 70, 86, 72, 74 and, in 1899-1900, to 96. Enrollment in School No. 2 was consistently between 60 and 70 during those years.

There were other schools, too. One, operated by the Catholic Church, had four teachers in 1899 and a number of non-Catholic Juneau families sent their children to it because they felt the children would be better educated than in the public school with 96 pupils and two teachers. There was a private school with one teacher, attended by the children of lawyers John F. Malony and John H. Cobb and perhaps others. And the Russian Church had a school, taught by the priest, \"with a small attendance.\"

In the fall of 1897 Miss Lizzie H. Harte was the lone teacher in School No. 1, with an enrollment of 72, so it is perhaps no wonder that she became ill before Christmas. V.C. Gambell came up from Seattle to take her place. He and his wife had previously taught on St. Lawrence Island and he left Juneau in April, 1898. He and his wife and daughter were drowned when the schooner Jane Grey capsized in the Bering Sea on May 22. The Eskimo village of Chibukak was renamed Gambell in their memory.

It was on June 6, 1900, that what was known as the Carter Code became law. Among other things, it permitted Alaska towns to incorporate, and only 23 days after the law went into effect, Juneau became a first class municipality. Congress, by special Act, granted Block 23, except for Lots 5 and 6, to the city, together with the 13-year-old two room school house that stood on it.

The first elected School Board consisted of H.F. Robinson, F.C. Hammond and W.W. Casey. Robinson has faded from view. Hammond was a mining man with interests in the Sheep Creek area and in 1899 had built the house on Seventh Street now known as Wickersham House. W.W. Casey was interested in several business enterprises and later served in the Territorial Legislature.

The board was sworn in on July 14, 1900, and Juneau had the honor of having the first independent public school in Alaska. The first priority of the board was to get more space and for that it had to depend on the City Council, which seems to have had no problem with an estimated $10,000 cost of an addition and furnishings.