Joe Juneau (prospector)
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Joseph Juneau (1836–1899) was a miner and prospector from Canada who was born in Saint-Paul-L'Hermite, in Québec. He is most famous for co-founding, with Richard Harris, the city of Juneau, Alaska, United States. The first major gold discovery in Juneau or Douglas Island (across from Juneau) was circa 1880. It has been the political capital of Alaska since 1906.
His Native American guide in southeastern Alaska was Chief Kowee. Kowee is credited with discovering much of the Juneau area. Joe and Richard were sent with Kowee by George Pilz, an entrepreneur from Sitka. Joe and Richard traded with the natives much of their grubstake (rations) for hoochinoo (alcoholic brews). Needless to say, the prospectors accomplished nothing. When they returned to Pilz empty-handed, he promptly sent them back to the Juneau area. There, Kowee took them beyond Gold Creek (which today flows beside the city's United States Federal Building[1]) to Silver Bow Basin. Today, a creek on Douglas Island is named Kowee Creek.
After the discovery of gold in Juneau, Joe and Richard loaded approximately 1,000 pounds of gold ore back to Sitka.
Quickly, Joseph helped to make the town of Juneau very popular. However, it is interesting to note that the town did not take up its current name right away; originally it was known as Harrisburg, Pilzburg, and Rockwell. The final name was chosen when Juneau used his first summer's earnings to buy the votes of his fellow miners.[citation needed]
Joe Juneau also traveled to Dawson City, Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s. He usually spent gold as fast as he got it but at the end of his life he owned a small restaurant in Dawson. Juneau died of pneumonia in Dawson; his body came back to the town that now bears his name in 1903. Both Joseph Juneau and Harris are buried in the city's Evergreen Cemetery.
