Digital Bob Archive

JANUARY 19, 1887-At last this camp is on the map with its own newspaper. J. C. Howard & Sons, publishers, today brought out the first issue of The Alaska Free Press, which will be published every Saturday. No longer can The Alaskan at Sitka claim to be the most westerly and most northerly newspaper in the United States. It is still the former, but The Alaska Free Press is now the most northerly.

In its first issue the paper reports that Juneau has eight general stores, two blacksmith shops, two lumber yards, three hotels, a tinsmith, two schools, a meat market, three drug stores, a court house and jail, two jewelry stores, two barber shops, two assay offices, a dressmaker, two music halls, eight saloons, three churches, three lawyers, two laundries, a gunsmith, a milkman, three doctors, a brewery, one mule, six horses, twelve cows, and a steam ferry that runs across the channel to Douglas Island.

Advertisers in the first issue are C. E. Coon & Co., Drugs; P. Brady, General Merchandise; Juneau City Hotel; Charles Wells, Blacksmithing; Conrad & Valentine, Jewelers and Watchmakers; Franklin Hotel; P. Corcoran, General Merchandise and Dealer in Furs; Koehler & James, General Merchandise and Fur Buyer; Pacific Coast Steamship Company, Juneau Laundry; Charles Cato, Tinsmith; C. W. Young, Contractor and Builder, also Lumber Yard and Boatbuilder; Workingman?s Drug Store; E. H. Boggs, Sawmill and Lumber Yard; Hart & Company, operating the Palace Theater and Pioneer Drug Store.

Captain John J. Healy will start running his steamer Yukon to Yukon Portage, also known as Chilkoot, at the head of Lynn Canal, next month, carrying both freight and passengers. He is interested with Edgar Wilson in a trading post at that point. The Yukon, a vessel of 14 tons, was brought here from Seattle last summer by Anthony Holmes and was soon afterward libeled for wages by C. B. Sperry, one of her crew. To satisfy the judgment she was sold by the marshal and was bid in by Captain Healy who had previously operated the sloop Charley on the Lynn Canal run. Miners will soon be heading for the Yukon. Their last chance to fill out their outfits is at the Healy & Wilson trading post.

Among those cashing in on the growing Yukon business are W. M. Bennett and Henry E. Cutter, residents of this camp. They build sleighs that are especially adapted to Yukon travel and are guaranteed to carry at least 25 times their own weight. They are in great demand by the experienced miners familiar with Yukon travel.