Digital Bob Archive

The first Douglas Island Bridge, which had been more than a year in construction, was opened to traffic on Labor Day, September 2, 1935, foretelling the end of the cross-channel ferry operations of the Juneau Ferry & Navigation Company. At one time the company had owned the largest fleet of boats in the area, but when bridge construction commenced in 1934, all except one of the boats were sold.

The big Alma, flagship of the fleet, which had carried hundreds of Juneau and Douglas people on excursions, went to Mrs. Anna Clark, wife of Captain John N. Clark of the Steamboat Inspection Service. They made their home aboard the Alma until they sold her to Joe Burdette of Ketchikan who converted her to a fish trap tender. Subsequent owners included the Ellamar Packing Company near Cordova and Dean C. Kayler, the Petersburg canneryman. The Alma burned on March 1, 1964, some 20 miles off Kodiak Island while fishing for king crab.

The Lone Fisherman, the second vessel of that name owned by the ferry company, had been built by the company at Tacoma in 1906. She came out with a compound steam engine and this was replaced in 1916 by a Corliss gas engine which in turn was replaced by a Union gas engine after she had been sold by the ferry company and was mostly operating as a towboat. In 1946 she was purchased by Henry Moy of Hoonah and Sitka and thenceforth operated as a fish packer.

That left only the Teddy, smallest vessel in the fleet, to carry on the ferry service. She was built in Astoria in 1910 and had been carrying passengers across Gastineau Channel ever since. Although the bridge opened on September 2, the ferry company continued to run the Teddy back and forth until October 31.

Skipper Art Nelson blew three long blasts - the traditional maritime signal of \"farewell\" - on the Teddy's whistle as the vessel pulled away from the Douglas float on October 31,1935. It was her last trip, marking the end of 38 years of ferry service by the Juneau Ferry & Navigation Co. and of at least a half century of ferry operations on the channel. Whether any passengers made a sentimental last crossing by ferry was not recorded by local newspapers. Perhaps erstwhile ferry riders had no such sentiments.

The papers did list some of the former ferry skippers: John T. Martin, C.E. Tibbits, Louis Nyland, Waldo States, E.J. Margerie and W.S. Pullen. The latter had been in charge for 17 years and he also managed the Alaska Electric Light & Power Company. Stockholders were B.M. Behrends, J.P. Corbus, Willis Nowell, Mrs. Martin Olsen, Elmer Smith and C.W. Fries.

Thenceforth, instead of a boat, a bus carried passengers to and from Douglas and a taxi carried the mail.