Digital Bob Archive

A separate building for the Juneau High School was very high on the priorities of Juneau residents by 1927. The Fifth Street School, which had been built in 1917 to house both grade and high schools, had become badly overcrowded.
Additionally, athletics were becoming increasingly important in the high school program. Football had been played off and on ever since 1903, but it was basketball that was fast coming to the fore, and the gymnasium in the Fifth Street School was far from adequate.

So a bond issue of $100,000 was proposed to put up a new building for the exclusive use of the high school. It was approved by Congress early in 1927 and a special election was held on April 19, 1927, for taxpayer approval. The measure of support for the new building can at least partly be measured by the election returns. Only Juneau property owners were eligible to vote and there were 460 of them on the rolls. Of those, 440 turned out for the election and the bond issue was approved 395 to 45. The bond issue was immediately oversubscribed locally.

The site selection committee, after considering several possibilities, decided on a portion of Block 22. Funds available did not permit buying the entire block. The portion of the block next to Fifth Street had two large dwellings, a smaller dwelling and the Mission Presbyterian Church and the city paid $24,000 for them and the lots they occupied, plus another lot at the rear. The two large dwellings, the Rustgard house and the Martin George house, were sold to Mrs. J. Montgomery Davis for $600 and $550 and she arranged to move them to other lots in the same block, where they remain today. The smaller dwelling was moved to Franklin Street and the church was moved to the corner of Maine at Fifth where it is now the Christian Science Church.

Harlin Thomas, the architect who designed the Fifth Street School, was called upon to draw plans for the new building. The bids were opened on July 16, 1927, and there was vast disappointment. As had happened with the effort to build the earlier school, the bids exceeded the funds available. The lowest bid for construction without plumbing, heating or wiring, was $66,000. It was decided to scale back the plans and to call for new bids in 1928.

In 1928 the City Council voted to contribute $15,000 toward the construction of the school and new bids were called. Peter Woeck of Seattle, who had constructed the Fifth Street School, was the low bidder at $67,981 with deductions amounting to $9,333 for certain alternatives in the specifications. Apparently these were accepted; three local firms were successful bidders for plumbing, heating and wiring. Excavation started on April 6, 1928 and the building was ready for occupancy early in November. It was dedicated on November 16 and 115 high school students moved in.

[Note: This is the 10th and last of a series of the building of public schools in the old core district of Juneau.]