Digital Bob Archive

NOVEMBER 1918 - PART 2:

Edward Webster, who had first come to Juneau in May 1881 to engage in mining, died on November 2, but not of influenza which was epidemic. Webster had mined for a few years, then entered into a partnership with Frank Bach of Douglas in a store in Douglas. He was also the wharfinger at Juneau and in 1893 the partners strung a telephone line across the channel so they could communicate with each other. The Treadwell Mining Company asked to hook into the line and they installed a 5-drop switchboard. This soon had to be doubled in capacity, then doubled again. The name Juneau and Douglas City Telephone Company was adopted.

The Bach-Webster partnership was dissolved in 1898 with Bach keeping the store and Webster assuming sole ownership of the telephone company. He also bought a pile driver and built a number of docks in Southeastern Alaska. The phone company, which continued to grow, had its offices in several different downtown locations until 1915 when Webster moved it to what promptly became known as Telephone Hill. The office and switchboard remained on the hill until 1958 when it was moved to a new building on Main Street. The Webster funeral was limited to family members because of the quarantine.

Early in November the Juneau newspapers carried several stories on an impending armistice and said there were rumors that the Kaiser would abdicate. Austria and Hungary laid down their arms on November 4 and on the same day the Allies signed peace terms and dispatched them to Berlin. The Kaiser did abdicate on November 9 and two days later the armistice was announced.

There was a ringing of bells and blowing of whistles on both sides of Gastineau Channel but there were no public gatherings or celebrations because of the quarantine. The speculation changed from \"When will the war end?\" to \"When will the boys come home?\" There was hope at first that some of them would be home in time for Christmas, but as time passed, that hope faded.

The war's end also ended sugar rationing and restrictions on the use of wheat. But the fund drives for war bonds, the Red Cross, the tobacco fund and so forth were soon replaced by a drive for Serbian relief and, soon afterward, for the many peoples of Europe, some of them former enemies, who were on the verge of starvation.

The Princess Sophia was still frequently in the news. The Wells Fargo strong box, said to contain $62,000 in gold bullion, was recovered by a diver, and so were some of the bodies that were still in the ship. By the end of November it was announced that a total of 183 bodies had been recovered, out of some 350 people who had been aboard. The Canadian Pacific Company announced that it would pay a reward of $50 for each body recovered, and that spurred several local boats to take up the search.