Digital Bob Archive

Residential rather than business has been the classification for Calhoun Avenue over the years, but there have been exceptions. The first was in 1897 when the Klondike Rush was getting started and many prospectors were outfitting in Juneau. B.M. Behrends, who had the largest general store in Juneau, needed more warehouse space and he built on a triangular lot he owned just below Fifth Street. The warehouse stood there for some 20 years; today the lot is maintained as a city park.

The years 1912-1914 were boom construction years in Juneau, due largely to the development of two large gold mines on this side of Gastineau Channel and perhaps influenced by the coming of territorial government. J.M. Giovanetti opened a general store in the 500 Block of Calhoun in a building now known as the Knight Apartments and continued it until 1928. Later on a dental office and a beauty parlor had Calhoun Avenue addresses.

The mining and business boom created a demand for housing and a three-story apartment building, first known as Hogan's Flats, went up just north of Fifth Street. It was followed by two others of the same type close by. Farther along the street the school population had far outgrown the old School No.2 and a new schoolhouse was built at the edge of the Native Village. Thus, Block 32 was available when Delegate James Wickersham was finally able to secure an appropriation for a dwelling for the governor, who had been living in rented quarters on Main Street.

Work commenced on the Governor's House on May 11, 1912, and it was completed in time for Governor and Mrs. Walter Clark to hold a public reception in it on New Year's Day, 1913. The building has undergone several remodelings, inside and out, and has been the residence of 15 different chief executives during its three-quarters of a century. It has also, during that time, attracted thousands of tourists to Calhoun Avenue.

For some 25 of those years, the front door of the Governor's House was sternly guarded by a seven-foot iron cannon that pointed toward the street. This piece of heavy artillery had once been carried by the Russian side-paddle steamboat Politofsky, built at Sitka in 1863 and transferred to the American flag in 1867.
The Polly, as she was known, towed logs and sometimes carried the mail on Puget Sound for some 30 years. One of her owners was the Port Blakely Mill Company and in 1916 that company presented the cannon to the Alaska Historical Library and Museum, predecessor of the State Library and State Museum.

The cannon was first set up outside the executive offices at Fifth and Main Streets, but in 1931 when that site became a parking lot for the new Federal and Territorial Building, now the State Capitol, the big gun was moved to the front of the Governor's House. In both locations it was a favorite photo subject for visitors. In the mid-1950s the grass plot where the cannon stood was replaced by a concrete apron and the gun was relegated to a warehouse at the sub-port where it has remained out of sight (and site) and mostly out of mind ever since.