Digital Bob Archive

Twin Glacier Camp was its name when it was established as a tourist facility 66 years ago. Today it is known as Taku Lodge. The founder was Dr. Harry Carlos DeVighne, a man with an unusual background, who practiced medicine in Alaska for more than 30 years.

DeVighne was born in Cuba, was orphaned in New York at age 8 during an epidemic, then ran away from a foster home and became a waif newsboy. When he was 12 a truant officer sent him to an Iowa farm but he ran away again and became, in turn, a hobo worker, a muleskinner and a gun-runner to Cuba. He also attended several schools, attempted to study law, and finally enrolled in a medical school in San Francisco.

After he graduated in 1904, DeVighne came north to Wrangell and in 1907 moved to Douglas Island as physician for the Treadwell Mining Company. Another move, in 1911, brought him to Juneau and he built a home which still stands on the corner of Fifth and Franklin. Before he moved to California in 1935, Dr. DeVighne delivered nearly 3,000 Alaska babies.

Early in 1923 Dr. DeVighne organized the Taku River Company which built the Twin Glacier Camp, billed as \"the first and only thing of its kind in Alaska.\" The camp had a formal opening on Sunday, June 24, 1923, with 22 guests from Juneau present, including Governor and Mrs. Scott C. Bone. At that time the camp consisted of a 20 by 40 log cabin and a number of tents on platforms. Mrs. Felix Gray of Douglas managed the camp that year. A boat made a trip to the camp from Juneau every three days and Captain William Strong also ran special one-day excursions up the Taku River from the camp with his boat, the Nakina.

Another manager during the early years of the Twin Glacier Camp was Dominic \"Dan\" Noonan who was probably as widely known among Alaskans as any man then living. He had first started coming to Alaska in 1904 as a steward with the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, then went up to the Yukon River for some ten years as chief steward on river steamboats of the Northern Commercial Company. In 1914 he returned to the Seattle-Alaska run as chief steward on such vessels as the City of Seattle and Admiral Rogers. Noonan brought his wife and three daughters with him to Twin Glacier Camp and the resort was especially popular during the seasons he was there.

But although the resort at the mouth of the Taku River was popular, it may not have been profitable. At any rate, Dr. DeVighne apparently did not hesitate at all when he had a chance to sell the place in 1930. The buyer was Mrs. Eric L. Smith of Los Angeles, the daughter of lumberman Charles M. Hackley of Muskegon, Michigan. He was noted for his many gifts to the City of Muskegon and for a large trust fund he left his daughter. She arrived in Southeastern Alaska on her yacht, the Stella Maris, accompanied by her son, Leigh Hackley Smith, and a registered nurse, Mary Joyce. Mrs. Smith was enchanted by the camp on the Taku and bought it with the idea of developing it as a second home and a place where her son could live the year around. When the Stella Maris headed south, Hack Smith and Mary Joyce stayed behind at Twin Glacier Camp.