Digital Bob Archive

Carrying the U.S. Mails to outlying places has provided a good deal of revenue for a lot of different Juneau transportation companies during the past hundred years. Some of those places, in early years, were as far away as Unalaska and Circle City, and Juneau has long been a hub for mail distribution north, west and south.

The mail-carrying business out of Juneau started small and, in fact, tiny.
Juneau got its post office in April, 1881. The other operating offices in Alaska at that time were Sitka and Wrangell. Mail was received once a month, by steamboat from Portland, Oregon, and the volume was small. There was no parcel post and no catalogs; just letters, first class; and newspapers and magazines, second class. Relatively few people subscribed to either type of publication.

Killisnoo, the herring fishery town near Angoon, got a post office in February, 1882, and it like the other three offices was served by the mail steamer. The Presbyterian mission, Haines, was next, with a post office in July, 1882. The mail steamer in those years seldom went up Lynn Canal and the Haines office had to depend for mail deliveries on occasional travelers in sailboats and canoes. The office was discontinued in 1885 and was not reestablished until 1898.

The Douglas post office was established on September 20, 1887, in the store of Patrick H. Fox. It was about that time that steamer service to Southeastern Alaska was increased to twice each month, and these vessels often called at the Treadwell mine wharf. Treadwell did not get a post office until 1901 and depended on the Douglas office for its mail service, so any mail sacks put ashore at Treadwell were no doubt rushed to Douglas.

A number of different operators ran ferries between Juneau and Douglas before 1897 and they transported mail back and forth between the two towns. This appears to have been a courtesy rather than a contract, but after the Juneau Ferry & Navigation Company was organized, at the end of 1896, the Post Office Department did let contracts for the service.

The first route was from Juneau to Douglas and return, once each day. When the Treadwell post office was opened on the day before Christmas in 1901, the mail route was extended to that ferry stop. The ferry itself went on down to Sheep Creek on one or two trips each day, but that stop was not included in the mail contract until after February 12, 1914, when the Thane post office was established.

The ferry company's mail contract, beginning in 1914, called for making thirteen round trips a week, calling at each Douglas, Treadwell and Thane. There were two trips on weekdays and one on Sundays, and in 1914 the company was paid $480 for the service. This went up to $600 per annum in the 1918 contract, and to $1200 two years later. At a time when passenger fares were two-bits, the added revenue was no doubt very welcome.