- 1940

Crystal Snow Jenne won election to the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives, the first women from Juneau to do so and only the second women elected to the Alaska legislature since 1912.

Evergreen Bowl swimming pool, Juneau, ca. mid-1940s. Alaska State Library, Jim Ruotsala photographs, 1934-2007, P469-2-11-01.

More than 200 children were on hand at Evergreen Bowl June 11 for the initial opening of the wading pool. Other facilities, including the horseshoe courts, will soon be completed and several softball games have already been played in the bowl. A large swimming pool was still under construction and was opened the next summer.

Paul Satko, his wife and seven of their nine children arrived July 26 afternoon in the Ark of Juneau after being more than two years on the way from their home in Virginia. Satko constructed the frame of his vessel in Virginia, then trucked it to Puget Sound to finish it. It measured 40 feet in length with 8 feet of beam and is 9 feet from deck to keel. It was powered by a 1927 Buick engine (which still can be seen on the rocks below the Gruening cabin by Amalga Harbor). Satko’s journey captured the nation’s attention as a family trying to start a new life on the “last frontier” and was covered by national media along the way. They started a homestead in the Eagle River valley, but settled in town a few years later.

An editorial in the Alaska Daily Empire declared that “National defense is today — perhaps only briefly, nevertheless undeniably — Alaska’s greatest industry,” a prescient insight for Alaska in the upcoming decade and future.

Pan American Airways replaced its “flying boats” service with DC3 airliners in June on its Seattle-Juneau route.

Juneau residents voted to go on Pacific Standard Time starting April 30, but the miners at the Alaska Juneau Mine announced that they would continue to work by 135th Meridian Time as in the past.

The new Gross Twentieth Century Theater opened October 31, giving Juneauites a choice of three movie houses, the other two being the Coliseum and the Capitol.

Taku winds blew a 25-foot boat off its cradle 600 feet to the middle of the Douglas ball field. A spectacular blaze the night of November 27 destroyed two boat houses and a small dwelling near Norway Point on the Glacier Highway and cut the communications cable between town and the tuning station at mile 7. Totally destroyed was Ralph Thompson’s boathouse in which a 42-foot halibut vessel for Everett Kirchoffer was under construction.

Two Juneau youths received a check for $13,855 from the assayer’s office in March for gold dust and nuggets they’d found in an old hidden flask.

show less