Digital Bob Archive

Different names for the same piece of geography or other landmarks are not uncommon, and there are several examples in the Juneau area.

One is the Douglas Island mountain which is often called Mount Jumbo, its original name, or at least its original white man's name. On June 21, 1881, local miners John Olds, H.A. Hays and Thomas Kernan staked a lode claim on a mountain on Douglas Island and named it the \"Mamoth\" Claim. On the same day, William R. Willetts staked an adjoining claim and named it the Jumbo Claim. Obviously all four men were chuck full of optimism, as of course all prospectors were, but why the name of Willetts' claim stuck to the mountain instead of the one picked by Olds and company is an unknown. Perhaps it was because he was a better speller. Neither of the claims ever amounted to anything.

Mount Jumbo served well enough for that rugged piece of real estate for many years, and the name often appeared in the newspapers. One such appearance was when a local Native came up with a story that the mountain was a dormant volcano. It would erupt one day, according to his story, and all of the white men and Slavonians would be killed but the Indians would escape. Another optimist.

The name Mount Jumbo remained firmly in place until early in 1939 when the people of Douglas took a notion to honor Frederick Worthen Bradley, a mining engineer who had died six years earlier. Bradley was a native of California and had had a long career in mining in that state and in Nevada and Idaho. In 1900 he became president of the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company, a small outfit with a mill in the Gold Creek Valley, and in 1911 he also became president of the Treadwell, Mexican and Alaska United Gold Mining Companies on Douglas Island.

One way of honoring the memory of a man of that caliber was to name something for him, like a mountain. Unnamed mountains were scattered all over Douglas Island, but the citizens chose to replace a perfectly good existing name. The Douglas City Council adopted a resolution and it, together with a petition full of signatures was sent to the Board on Geographic Names in Washington. As of May 1939 the official name became Mount Bradley.

But another effort to have a place name officially changed was a failure. On June 13, 1881, three prospectors recorded their Bear lode claim on what they called Juneau Island. The name stuck. The claim proved worthless, but the federal government in 1890 reserved the island for a Navy coaling station. Some time after 1900 Douglas people began calling it Mayflower Island, but the timing and origin of that are unknown. In 1910 a walkway was built to the island and a dance pavilion was placed there. A Memorial to Congress, asking that the island be given to the town of Douglas for use as a park and that its name be changed to Mayflower Island, was adopted by the First Territorial Legislature. Congress ignored the request and the federal government retained title. And the official name remains Juneau Island.