A recent transplant to Juneau from Iowa, Tripp J Crouse has more than 13 years of journalism and newspaper experience, and was previously the social media editor for the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, from April 2013 to July 2016.
A 37-year-old Juneau man is wanted in connection with a stabbing last weekend along Thane Road.
The Juneau Police Department released these images of Joshua Levi Brown, who’s being sought in the stabbing of a 24-year-old victim along Thane Road on April 22.
Brown has several aliases: Charlie Hussle or Hustle, Charlie Brown and Alex Douglas Dornbeirer.
He’s a white male, 5-foot-9-inches tall, about 175 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. Police consider him extremely dangerous and not to be confronted by the public.
Police say someone stabbed the victim the night of April 22 near parked cars along Thane Road. Party-goers had a fire on the beach below.
The victim was taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital and later medevaced to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. A nursing supervisor said he was discharged Friday afternoon.
Contact the Juneau Police Department at 586-0600 or Juneau Crime Line online at www.juneaucrimeline.com with information about Brown’s location or the case.
Franklin Street is one of the oldest streets in Juneau, but how it got its name is a mystery to many. (Photo by Tripp J Crouse/KTOO)
A street in Juneau is a popular locale for residents and tourists alike. South Franklin Street particularly is home to several bars, shops and a rich history.
For many, Franklin is iconic. But where the street gets its name is a bit of a mystery that one resident asked us to look into.
“I walk up and down it every day,” said Allison Eddins, who moved to Juneau 2½ years ago and works as a city planner. “It’s the heart of the historic district.”
“I feel like I know a fair amount about Juneau’s history,” Eddins said, “but where some of these streets got their names has always been a little bit of a mystery to me. So, I decided it would be a good question to pose to you guys, specifically about Franklin Street,” she said.
We asked Jody DeBruyne, curator of collections and exhibits for the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.
Jodi DeBruyne, curator of collections and exhibits for Juneau-Douglas City Museum, pulls items from the museum’s collections on April 14, 2017. (Photo by Tripp J Crouse/KTOO)
“Franklin Street was named after Howard Franklin,” DeBruyne said, consulting The Centennial Gazetteer’s “A Guide to Juneau Alaska Place Names.” “He was a chairman of a committee appointed at the miners meeting on March 21, 1881, to lay out the city’s streets and lots.”
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Franklin first appears in Juneau records on Feb. 24, 1881, when he and five other men staked a group of placer claims on Specimen Gulch in the Gold Creek Valley.
Franklin the man came to Juneau from British Columbia, and engaged in mining in the Silverbow Basin for several years.
According to Robert DeArmond’s book “The Founding of Juneau,” J.M. Cooper and Frank McMahon also were named to the committee. That committee laid out Main, Seward and Franklin streets, the cross streets and established the blocks at 200 square feet.
The Franklin Street name first appeared in local records on April 4, 1881.
“He later went to the Interior and he was reported to have been the first man to discover gold in the Fortymile country, where the Franklin Gulch is also named after him.”
It’s a mystery why Franklin’s name was chosen for one of the streets, and not one of the other men.
DeBruyne says the downtown Juneau then would have looked vastly different from today: Front and Franklin streets bordered the waterfront. Today that area has been filled in and built upon.
But in 1881, one property owner almost derailed the committee’s plan for plotting out downtown Juneau.
“When they were looking at lots and things, a man named N.A. Fuller’s lot was squarely what was to become Franklin Street at its present intersection with Front Street and refused to vacate,” DeBruyne read from DeArmond’s book. “As a result that portion of Franklin was not cut through to the waterfront until the mid-1890s, the last five lots were along what is now South Franklin.”
In its early days, Franklin Street almost ended at Front Street because one person refused to give up a plot of land, so that the thoroughfare could be extended to the waterfront. (Photo by Tripp J Crouse/KTOO)
Franklin almost ended at Front Street. Because of one guy.
“So it wasn’t until a few years after Franklin Street got named that it actually reached all the way down to the waterfront, because somebody refused to give up his spot,” DeBruyne said.
According to The State of Alaska Guide, Fuller was from Sitka, and in spring 1880, he urged Joe Juneau and Richard Harris to investigate a prospect around what’s now known as Gold Creek.
Those miners, of course, went on to found Harrisburg, which was later renamed Juneau.
Franklin Street’s past is just as storied.
“It was the prostitution district. I think probably most people know that but it’s one of those kind of fun facts,” DeBruyne said. “Right there where the cruise ships dock and we greet people with jewelry stories today was a different kind of greeting back in the day.”
According to the Dawson Daily News, Franklin died of heart failure in 1904. He was 65. Franklin was buried in Dawson, Yukon.
Two buildings along South Franklin Street are on the National Register of Historic Places: the Alaskan Hotel and the Alaska Steam Laundry building.
Who was Calhoun Avenue named for?
Our next question takes us about a half-mile northwest, up the hill. Another question-asker pondered the origins of another somewhat famous street: Calhoun Avenue.
He wanted to know if the street was named after John C. Calhoun, the statesman and political theorist in the early 1800s.
Juneau’s Calhoun Avenue is named after a different Calhoun altogether.
Jody DeBruyne is the curator of collections and exhibits for the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. (Photo by Tripp J Crouse/KTOO)
DeBruyne helped me dig into that street’s history.
The road was a narrow cart track carved out of the steep western slope of Bonanza Ridge, according to a 1988 article by Robert DeArmond on Juneau Public Libraries website. It gave early residents easy access to the Evergreen Cemetery.
“It was renamed for Mary V. Calhoun, an early resident of the area,” she said. “Her and her husband, John, arrived in Juneau from Wisconsin in 1888, and they established a dairy that was on Calhoun Avenue, right around where the governor’s mansion is.”
Their cows grazed along Gold Creek, the south bank of which was sometimes-called Calhoun Flats.
“They were there until they moved south in 1902 and sold their dairy,” she said. “There’s not much that I could find on either Mary or John, but one of the references that I found said that she was so well liked that they renamed the street for her.”
John died in Seattle in 1906. Mary died in Nanaimo, British Columbia, in 1912.
Efforts by Alaska Gov. Bill Walker to try and force legislators to consider his appointments to boards, commissions and key administration posts were rebuffed Thursday in a joint session.
My statement on the Senate’s failure to hold a vote on my Cabinet nominees and appointees for state boards and commissions today. #aklegpic.twitter.com/LLvES3nXEj
— Governor Bill Walker (@AkGovBillWalker) April 27, 2017
In a tweet, KTUU political reporter Austin Baird pinned it on Republican lawmakers.
Republican lawmakers have rebuffed Gov. Bill Walker’s executive proclamation, which attempted to force votes on his appointees #akleg
Senate Majority Leader Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, made the motion to adjourn the Legislature’s confirmation session without taking up the appointments.
The Senate’s vote tally wasn’t immediately available, but in a tweet, KTVA reporter Liz Raines shared a shot of the House members’ adjournment vote.
This comes after Alaska’s Senate refused House requests to meet in joint session to consider confirmations.
Walker issued a proclamation Wednesday calling the Legislature into joint session Thursday. He cited two constitutional provisions as giving him authority to do so.
One allows a governor to convene the Legislature whenever he deems it in the public interest. The other cites the governor’s responsibility “for the faithful execution of the laws.”
Micciche previously said delaying a confirmation session would allow lawmakers to focus on completing work on key legislation.
Walker’s pick for attorney general, Jahna Lindemuth, and his appointment of Drew Phoenix to the state’s human rights commission appeared to be two of the more contentious ones.
Walker’s appointments have been able to serve in their positions but are subject to legislative approval.
Juneau police arrested two people on outstanding warrants Friday.
The police department sent out a news release about 10:30 a.m. requesting information on the whereabouts of Juneau resident Christopher Wesley Davison, 33.
Davison was wanted on a $2,500 warrant for failure to appear on a charge of rioting and criminal mischief.
Both warrants were for failure to comply with his probation stemming from different and previous charges. One for burglary and the second for robbery and assault. Both warrants were for $10,000 each.
Police notified Riverbend Elementary School of the incident, but that there was not an immediate threat to the school, Juneau schools spokeswoman Kristin Bartlett said.
“The information that they gave us indicated that we shouldn’t let kids go out on the playground and we should keep them inside the school building,” Bartlett said. “But that it wasn’t an imminently dangerous situation to the staff or the students.”
The school went into stay-put mode.
“This is a tool that schools have that they lock the outside doors of the school and continue with the classes, but the students will go about their normal instructional day,” Bartlett said. “They won’t go out to recess, and if there are scheduled activities outside of the school they’ll wait until the incident is over.”
Police secured the area and made contact with the woman by phone. Shortly after noon, the woman came out of the apartments, and police took her into protective custody.
The school was notified and reopened to the public.
Juneau police spokesman Lt. David Campbell says the weapon was a pistol and reportedly loaded. Other details were not immediately available.
Police did not release the woman’s name and no charges were immediately available.
The Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is holding its annual tribal assembly today through Friday at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall in Juneau.
