Juneau, Alaska, presently incorporated as a unified home rule municipality called the City and Borough of Juneau, was designated the capital of Alaska on June 6, 1900. The organic act passed by the U.S. Congress which established Juneau as the capital also allowed Alaskan communities to incorporate for the first time. Sitka and Nome both established "provisional governments" prior to this; Juneau did not follow suit, but did provide limited public services prior to incorporation, such as fire protection and school instruction.
Following the passage of the organic act, Juneau's incorporation petition was certified and the first election of officials occurred on June 29, 1900. Douglas, located a short distance southwest of Juneau across Gastineau Channel, followed suit by incorporating on March 29, 1902. Twenty-eight individuals served as the mayor of Juneau, Alaska, including three acting mayors, while another twenty-five individuals served as mayor of Douglas, Alaska.
The Greater Juneau Borough was incorporated in October 1963, established by an act of the state legislature earlier that year (Chapter 52, Session Laws of Alaska 1963) which required the most populous election districts in the state to incorporate as boroughs by January 1, 1964. The borough, the first to incorporate as a first-class borough, encompassed the two incorporated cities, several surrounding suburbs and smaller settlements on both sides of Gastineau Channel and along Lynn Canal, plus thousands of square miles of surrounding wilderness. Several years after the borough's incorporation, the legislature passed a bill allowing for boroughs and cities to unify (or merge). Several years after that, Juneau, Douglas and the borough unified to form the current municipality, which incorporated on July 1, 1970. As of the office's last election in 2018, sixteen people have served as mayor of Juneau under this government.
Juneau was incorporated on June 29, 1900, and was a home rule city prior to unification. [1]
No. | Image | Name (birth–death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
Acting | John F. Malony (1857–1919) | 1900 | 1900 | |
1 | Arthur K. Delaney (1841–1905) | 1900 | 1901 | |
2 | George Forrest (c. 1870–[ ? ]) | 1901 | 1902 | |
3 | Ohlin H. Adsit (1855–1909) | 1902 | 1904 | |
(2) | George Forrest (c. 1870–[ ? ]) | 1904 | 1905 | |
4 | John F. Malony (1857–1919) | 1905 | 1906 | |
5 | Herman Tripp (1859–1939) | 1906 | 1907 | |
(2) | George Forrest (c. 1870–[ ? ]) | 1907 | 1908 | |
6 | Emery Valentine (1858–1930) | 1908 | 1912 | |
7 | Harry Bishop (c. 1869–1920) | 1912 | 1913 | |
8 | Charles Carter (1870–1961) | 1913 | 1914 | |
9 | John Reck (1865–c. 1950) | 1914 | 1916 | |
10 | Benjamin D. Stewart (1878–1976) | 1916 | 1917 | |
(6) | Emery Valentine (1858–1930) | 1917 | 1919 | |
11 | J. Latimer Gray | 1919 | 1920 | |
12 | R. E. Robertson (1885–1961) | 1920 | 1923 | |
13 | Isadore Goldstein (1883–1959) | 1923 | 1925 | |
14 | J. J. Connors (1876–1951) | 1925 | 1927 | |
15 | Thomas Judson (1882–1938) | 1927 | 1933 | |
(13) | Isadore Goldstein (1883–1959) | 1933 | 1937 | |
(15) | Thomas Judson (1882–1938) | 1937 | 1938 | |
16 | Harry Lucas (1890–1949) | 1938 | 1944 | |
17 | A. B. Hayes | 1944 | 1945 | |
18 | Ernest Parsons | 1945 | 1946 | |
19 | Waino Hendrickson (1896–1983) | 1946 | 1953 | |
20 | Bert McDowell (1904–c. 1975) | 1953 | 1955 | |
21 | M. L. "Molly" MacSpadden (1903–1961) | 1955 | 1959 | |
22 | Lauris Parker (1918–2003) | 1959 | 1961 | |
Acting | J. Wayne Johnson | 1961 | 1961 | |
Acting | A. W. Boddy (c. 1909–1987) | 1961 | 1961 | |
(22) | Lauris Parker (1918–2003) | 1961 | 1967 | |
23 | Timothy O'Day | 1967 | 1967 | |
24 | Joseph George | 1967 | 1969 | |
25 | Joseph McLean (1917–2012) | 1969 | 1970 | |
Douglas was incorporated on March 29, 1902, and was also a home rule city prior to unification.. [2]
No. | Image | Name (birth–death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Hopp | 1902 | 1903 | |
2 | Frank Bach | 1903 | 1904 | |
(1) | Charles Hopp | 1904 | 1905 | |
3 | William Stubbins | 1905 | 1907 | |
4 | M. S. Hudson | 1907 | 1908 | |
5 | M. J. O'Connor | 1908 | 1912 | |
(3) | William Stubbins | 1912 | 1913 | |
(5) | M. J. O'Connor | 1913 | 1915 | |
6 | Peter Johnson | 1915 | 1916 | |
(5) | M. J. O'Connor | 1916 | 1917 | |
7 | Elmer Smith | 1917 | 1920 | |
8 | F. A. J. Gallwas | 1920 | 1921 | |
9 | James Cristae | 1921 | 1923 | |
(8) | F. A. J. Gallwas | 1923 | 1925 | |
10 | J. O. Kirkham | 1925 | 1926 | |
11 | Neis Anderson | 1926 | 1928? | |
12 | J. R. Guerin | 1928 | 1929 | |
13 | L. W. Kilburn | 1929 | 1932 | |
14 | John Feusi | 1932 | 1933 | |
15 | Guy Smith | 1933 | 1934 | |
16 | Albert Goetz | 1934 | 1937 | |
(13) | L. W. Kilburn | 1937 | 1941 | |
17 | Robert Bonner, Jr. | 1941 | 1942 | |
18 | Erwin Hachmeister | 1942 | 1943 | |
19 | Elton Engstrom (1905–1963) | 1943 | 1944 | |
20 | James Parsons | 1944 | 1945 | |
21 | Marcus Jensen (1908–2001) | 1945 | 1947 | |
22 | Mike Pusich (1896–1953) | 1947 | 1953 | |
23 | William Boehl (1914–2000) | 1953 | 1961 | |
(21) | Marcus Jensen (1908–2001) | 1961 | 1964 | |
24 | Guy Russo (1921–2006) | 1964 | 1969 | |
25 | Robert Savikko (1927–1972) | 1969 | 1970 | |
No. | Image | Name (birth–death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Claude Millsap, Jr. (1920–) | 1963 | 1967 | |
2 | Myrton R. Charney (1931–2013) | 1967 | 1970 | |
No. | Image | Name (birth–death) | Took office | Left office |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Joseph McLean (1917–2012) | 1970 | 1973 | |
2 | William A. Macomber | 1973 | October 7, 1975 | |
3 | Virginia Kline | October 7, 1975 | 1976 | |
4 | William D. "Bill" Overstreet (1926–2013) | 1976 | 1983 | |
5 | Fran Ulmer (1947–) | 1983 | 1985 | |
6 | Ernest Polley (c. 1937–1997) | October 14, 1985 | October 10, 1988 | |
7 | Bruce Botelho (1948–) | October 10, 1988 | October 14, 1991 | |
8 | Jamie Parsons (1941–2015) | October 14, 1991 | October 10, 1994 | |
9 | Byron Mallott (1943–2020) | October 10, 1994 | February 13, 1995 | |
10 | Dennis Egan (1947–2022) | February 13, 1995 | October 9, 2000 | |
11 | Sally Smith (1945–) | October 9, 2000 | October 20, 2003 | |
(7) | Bruce Botelho (1948–) | October 20, 2003 | October 11, 2012 | |
12 | Merrill Sanford (1947–) | October 11, 2012 | October 20, 2015 | |
13 | Greg Fisk (1945–2015) | October 20, 2015 | November 30, 2015 [3] | |
14 | Mary Becker (acting) | November 30, 2015 | March 28, 2016 | |
15 | Ken Koelsch (c. 1945–) | March 28, 2016 [4] | October 15, 2018 | |
16 | Beth Weldon (1965–) | October 15, 2018 | incumbent [5] |
Juneau, officially the City and Borough of Juneau, is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alaska, located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. On July 1, 1970, the City of Juneau merged with the City of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current consolidated city-borough, which ranks as the second-largest municipality in the United States by area and is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware.
Ketchikan is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough on Revillagigedo Island of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic Landmark District.
In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is a type of unitary authority that has the governmental powers of both a municipal corporation and a county.
Douglas Island is a tidal island in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is part of the city and borough of Juneau, just west of downtown Juneau and east of Admiralty Island. It is separated from mainland Juneau by the Gastineau Channel, and contains the communities of Douglas and West Juneau.
Douglas is a community on Douglas Island in southeastern Alaska, directly across the Gastineau Channel from downtown Juneau.
Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
The Unorganized Borough is composed of the portions of the U.S. state of Alaska which are not contained in any of its 19 organized boroughs. While referred to as the "Unorganized Borough", it is not a borough itself, as it forgoes that level of government structure. It encompasses nearly half of Alaska's land area, 323,440 square miles (837,700 km2), and, as of the 2020 U.S. Census, it had a population of 77,157, which was 10.52% of the population of the state. The largest communities in the Unorganized Borough are the cities of Bethel, Unalaska, and Valdez.
The Assembly of the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska is the governing body and legislative branch of the City and Borough of Juneau, the local government of Juneau, Alaska, United States. As Juneau is a unified municipality, its corporate limits encompass the historic town of Juneau, suburbs both urban and rural, as well as thousands of square miles of wilderness.
The Constitution of the State of Alaska was ratified on April 4, 1956 and took effect with Alaska's admission to the United States as a U.S. state on January 3, 1959.
The government of Alaska in common with state and federal governments of the United States, has three branches of government: the executive, consisting of the Governor of Alaska and the state agencies; the state legislature consisting of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate; and the judiciary consisting of the Supreme court and lower courts.
The Treadwell gold mine was on the south side of Douglas Island, .5-mile (0.80 km) east of downtown Douglas and southeast of downtown Juneau, owned and operated by John Treadwell. Composed of four sub-sites, Treadwell was in its time the largest hard rock gold mine in the world, employing over 2,000 people. Between 1881 and 1922, over 3 million troy ounces of gold were extracted. Not much remains today except for a few crumbling buildings and a "glory hole". Although John Treadwell had twelve years of experience in both placer and lode mines, he was a carpenter and builder by trade who had come to Alaska prior to the Klondike Gold Rush.
The state of Michigan is largely divided in the same way as many other U.S. states, but is distinct in its usage of charter townships. Michigan ranks 13th among the fifty states in terms of the number of local governmental entities.
Kim Steven Elton is a journalist, commercial fisherman, government official and Democratic politician in the U.S. state of Alaska. Elton represented Juneau in the Alaska House of Representatives for two terms, from 1995 to 1999. In 1998, he was elected to the Alaska Senate, serving until his resignation in early 2009 to accept appointment as director of Alaska Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior by President Barack Obama. Prior to holding elected office, Elton was executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and a salmon troller engaged in commercial fishing.
Snettisham is a locale and former populated place in the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska, United States. Based on the mainland coast of Stephens Passage, it is 31 miles (50 km) southeast of the city of Juneau. The area was named by George Vancouver in 1794; the bay on which Snettisham was located was named for the village of Snettisham in Norfolk, England. It was established as a gold- and silver-mining camp around 1895, its operations being linked to those in the immediate Juneau area, and it remained a small harbor village until 1926. The United States Department of the Treasury designated Snettisham as one of several of Alaska's "special" landing places for vessels carrying "coal, salt, railroad iron, and other like items in bulk". The designation was meant to encourage the construction of facilities to accommodate these shipments, thus stimulating creation and growth of local businesses.
The Douglas Bridge is located in Juneau, Alaska, United States. Spanning the Gastineau Channel, it connects Juneau's eastern, mainland side with the city's communities on Douglas Island to the west. The current span is the second bridge of the same name; the original, built in 1935, was demolished in 1981 following the completion of its replacement in 1980.
Sarah J. Smith is an American politician. She was a member of the Alaska Legislature in the 1970s and 1980s, and the mayor of Juneau, Alaska, from 2000 to 2003. She later worked as a field representative for United States Senator Mark Begich.
John Evan Dapcevich was an American politician in the state of Alaska.
Stephen Gregory Fisk was the 13th mayor of the unified City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska, the state capital of Alaska, United States. Prior to his election, Fisk had worked as a fisheries consultant. He died at home just over a month into his term of office after being elected over incumbent Merrill Sanford by a wide margin.