Digital Bob Archive

JULY 1918 - PART 3:

Due to a shortage of men, five women were being hired by the Treadwell Mining Company to work in its electrical department, according to Chief Electrician Charles Preston. The five were being instructed by Henry Martin about electric current.

Miss Thelma Ninnis, who taught at the Perseverance school in 1917, accepted a position to teach at Springfield, Oregon, where her mother was residing.

Arthur Fairchilds of Juneau was believed to be the first Alaskan to reach the front in Europe as an aviator. He was a member of the Juneau Elks Lodge and had been employed at the Annex Creek power plant and by the Juneau Cold Storage Co.

As a result of efforts by the Juneau Ministerial Association and a number of other residents, marriage license fees in U.S. Commissioners' offices in the First Division were to be reduced from $6.40 to $3, effective October 1. The ministers took up the matter with the Attorney General of the United States, who granted the reduction. In the other three judicial divisions the fee was to be $4.50.

The manpower shortage extended to local dairies, which were advertising for men to assist in harvesting the hay crop. They were also recruiting women as milkers.

Lack of transportation was hampering the local fishing fleet. The boats Signal, Emma and Ocean were in port with 45,000 pounds of halibut which they were unable to ship. The Canadian steamer Prince Rupert was in port but could not take the fish because of restrictions against cargo shipments in foreign bottoms. The three vessels left for Prince Rupert, B.C. to sell their catches. Twenty-four hours later word was received from Washington, D.C., that the shipping restriction had been lifted for the duration of the war. There were still problems, however. The Spokane of the Pacific Steamship Company cleaned up all of the iced fish on local docks and the Jefferson of the Alaska Steamship Company was to take 150 boxes of frozen salmon from the Juneau Cold Storage but failed to do so because her refrigeration plant was not operating properly. The cold storage was filled to capacity and could take no more fish until a shipment could be made.

Stanislaw Zynda leased his Zynda Hotel, at the corner of Third and Main Streets, to Lockie Mackinnon for three years. The five-story concrete hotel opened in 1914 as the New Cain and was later purchased by Mr. Zynda. (Still later it became the Juneau Hotel until it was torn down for the widening of Main Street.) Mr. Zynda also leased his brewery building and equipment, behind the hotel, to the Alaska Beverage Company.

Local salmon canners were arming the watchmen on their traps because of increasing piracy. A consortium of canners also operated a high speed patrol boat and U.S. Subchaser 309 also joined the anti-piracy patrol.