- 1977
Kimball organ at dedication ceremony in Juneau’s state office building 1977. Alaska State Library, Kimball-Pipe-Organ-Dedication-1977, P53-01.
The Kimball Theatre Pipe Organ was opened to the public and dedicated by Governor Jay Hammond. The organ was originally installed in 1928 in the Coliseum Theatre by W.D. Gross, later moved to his 20th Century Theater in the early 1940s, donated to the State Museum in 1975 and then installed on the 8th floor of the State Office Building where it is occasionally played for the public.
Mendenhall Mall opened in the valley area close to the airport. Anchorage Fine Arts Museum named well-known Juneau artist, Rie Munoz, Outstanding Alaskan Artist of the year. KTOO launched a television production unit to provide daily Legislative coverage.
A tight housing market in Juneau caused some interesting alternatives, including more and more people moving into boats in the local harbors and finding them to be supportive, friendly neighborhoods. Adding to housing woes, however, city building inspectors estimated that upwards of 40 percent of structures in the old downtown areas of Juneau and Douglas needed extensive repairs, and tenants complained that landlords didn’t seem to care about making repairs or respond to health and safety violations. Federal criteria for building grants and loans also had limited new construction for low-and-moderate-income housing. Mobile homes were another alternative for first-time buyers and represented about 25% of Juneau’s single-family residences in the area. However, initial costs for acquiring those units included high down-payments and interest rates and short pay-back schedules, and the area had been experiencing a shortage of city-approved lots to place them on. For those who could afford it, however, the year did see a boom in construction in higher-priced houses, with the city reporting 441 new housing units permitted, nearly double that at the decade’s beginning. Even with the specter of a possible capital move, banks, contractors, and home buyers exhibited confidence in Juneau’s future.
Sealaska Corporation finished filing their land selection claims, totaling 405,000 acres, in mid-December under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The corporation calculated that they were entitled to 280,000 acres under the act but over-selected to allow for other claim overlaps from other village corporations. Department of Interior officials would determine the exact acreage contingent on other Native land claim selections. Primary value of lands selected was for timber harvest and development, but mineral and recreational value lands were also included.