Digital Bob Archive

Early in 1918 instrumental music became an important part of the Juneau scene. An Alaska Native Brotherhood band with 18 members was directed by Frank Mercer. Unfortunately, neither of the local newspapers published a list of the members, but the band gave some concerts and played at some basketball games.

Juneau Camp No. 4 of the A.N.B. had been organized in January 1914, but it did not have a home of its own. Meetings were held in the school house or in Kowee's house, but by 1918 a fund had been started to erect a hall, and some of the A.N.B. band concerts were for the benefit of that fund. The Alaska Native Daughters also contributed to the fund with the proceeds from a series of dances.

It was not until 1921 that there was enough money in the fund to buy a building in Treadwell. One newspaper called it the Serbian Hall, the other had it the Croatian Hall, a discrepancy that in Treadwell's heyday might have started a small Balkan war. But by 1921 most of the Serbians and Croatians were gone, along with the Bosnians, Dalmatians, Bohemians, Montenegrians and all the others from that part of the world who had toiled in the mines at Treadwell. The building was floated across the channel on a couple of barges and set up on pilings on the water side of Willoughby Avenue to become Juneau's first A.N.B. Hall.

During February Professor J.F. Stumpf organized two complete orchestras at the public school. In the Junior orchestra, mostly beginners, were Eilef Anderson, Esha Quist, Dora Lundstrom, Clara Montgomery, Masie German, William Hersey,
Nell Anderson, Legia Kashevaroff, Lucille Bathe and Philip Burke, violins; Ellis Kimball, cornet; Roy Whitney, clarinet; Margaret Shattuck and Margarie Clark, piano; and Harold Clark, drums.

Members of the Senior orchestra were: Mark Kimball, Albi Torvinen, Valeria Gaird, Nadja Kashevaoff, Roy Torvinen, Doreen Ross, Demerick Frakes, Clem Hodges and Charles Perelle, violins; Truman Siverseon and Ellis Kimball, cornets; Joe McLaughlin and Mable Bathe, mandolin; Jack Oswald, trombone; Roy Whitney, clarinet; Harold Clark, drums; Gertrude Nelson and Francis Ptack, piano.

In February the orchestras played during patriot exercises at the school on Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays.

The town of Douglas continued to decline as a result of the closure of three of the Treadwell mines. Henry Brie packed up his drug store and moved it to Seattle. The Lyric Theater closed its doors and the Labor Union, which owned the building, leased it to the Treadwell Club. But W.O. Gross, who operated the Coliseum Theater in Juneau, bought the former Phoenix Bar from Gus Roene and announced that he would remodel it and would open the Douglas Coliseum.

The Juneau Cold Storage opened a retail fish market and advertised red snapper and salt gray cod at 10 cents a pound; silver salmon, halibut cheeks and salt Norway herring at 15 cents; and kippered or mild cured salmon and boneless codfish at 25 cents.