Digital Bob Archive

JUNE 1918 - PART 4:

A fire in the main tunnel of the Alaska Juneau mine on June 17 shut down operations temporarily and it was reported that damage might amount to several thousand dollars. The pipe house was completely burned and other property was destroyed or damaged. The fire broke out about 4 p.m., just as the shift was changing, and a crew of foremen, shift bosses and miners formed a bucket brigade and finally got the blaze under control. It got so hot in the tunnel that the trolley wires were melted for a considerable distance and they had to be replaced before operations could resume.

From pulpit to pilot house and from hotel desk to deckhand. That was the experience of two Juneau men when the mailboat Prince of Wales was without a crew because of illnesses and general lack of man power in the area. The Rev. David Waggoner, the minister of the Native Presbyterian Church here, took over as skipper for the run to Sitka and way ports, and Glenn Bartlett, manager of the Gastineau Hotel, went along as purser and deck hand. The Rev. Waggoner had acquired considerable boating experience when he was in charge of the Presbyterian mission boat Lois but Bartlett admitted that the trip, which was completed successfully, was a new experience for him.

The J.H. Long cannery on the Juneau waterfront was swamped with fish at the end of June. The cannery was also short of help, so a number of townspeople pitched in to help out. This included three clerks and the bookkeeper from the C.W.
Young Hardware store, several other merchants, and at least one lawyer.

A shortage of bait for the halibut fleet was solved when Martin Holst constructed a trap about four miles north of Tee Harbor and quickly impounded between 5000 and 6000 barrels of herring. Word of the availability of fresh herring quickly spread to Petersburg and Ketchikan, and halibut boats from those ports joined the local fleet in lining up at the trap where they secured the live bait they preferred to the frozen commodity.

A 11O-foot United States subchaser, powered by Standard gasoline engines and capable of high speed, arrived to take up patrol duties in the area. The main purpose of the patrols was to protect salmon canneries and their fish traps against IWW or other pro-German elements as well as against ordinary fish pirates, of which there had been an increasing number.

Mrs. Josephine Valentine, wife of Juneau's mayor, was appointed by Governor Riggs to chair the Aviation Committee for Alaska. The appointment was made at the request of the National Aerial Aid Society, Inc., which collected jewelry and precious metals of all kinds. Items collected were either sold as is or melted down and sold for the benefit of aviation.

Seventy-five pupils of the parochial schools of Juneau and Douglas went to Grindstone Creek aboard the ferry Amy for the annual school picnic.