A recent partnership between the City and Borough of Juneau Parks and Recreation Department, Community Development Department and the Juneau-Douglas City Museum consolidated existing paper burial records from Evergreen Cemetery into a digital database through a GIS mapping project.
This project helped confirm gravesite locations, move historic Evergreen Cemetery documents to the Museum collection and produce a brochure. The project was partially funded by a National Park Service, Department of the Interior and a grant from the State of Alaska Office of History and Archaeology, Department of Natural Resources.
Between 1881 and 1891, the first city cemetery was set along the ridge above downtown. Shortly after its establishment, “Ridge Cemetery” became overcrowded with mining claims and residential development of the Chicken Ridge neighborhood. Relocation of the original cemetery commenced and, in 1891, Evergreen Cemetery Association was established. A location outside of the residential and commercial areas was selected for the 9-acre cemetery. In the following year, volunteers constructed the road connecting downtown to the rural cemetery along a narrow cart track originally carved out of the Bonanza Ridge. “Cemetery road” — as it was known until 1902 — follows present day Calhoun Road. At its origination, Evergreen included three sections — Protestant, Catholic and Native — but over time was further divided to include the American Legion, Masonic, Moose/Masonic, Odd Fellows, Elks and Serbian sections. In 1907, Evergreen Cemetery, excluding the private section owned and maintained by the Russian Orthodox Church, was deeded to the City of Juneau and continues to be maintained by the CBJ Parks and Recreation Department. The once rural Evergreen Cemetery has since been surrounded by residential neighborhoods developed in the early and mid-20th century as well as commercial development along Glacier Avenue.
“Every year locals and tourists come in to the Museum with questions about Evergreen Cemetery, often wondering how to find a family member, friend or other person of interest. I believe their search comes from a desire to find a connection to our past and visiting cemeteries, like Evergreen, fulfills that desire. This search engine is quick and easy to use to find the names and location of a burial,” said Collections Curator, Jodi DeBruyne.
“Choosing from so many interesting and important community members buried in Evergreen Cemetery was difficult,” says Museum Director Jane Lindsey who worked with the Community Development Department and a group of volunteers on the brochure. “We looked for community members whose lives shared pivotal points in our community’s story and could be tied to historic neighborhoods and structures.” Sheep Creek Mary James, James and Mary-Ogden Watson, Jake and Marjorie Blake Cropley, Cecilia Kunz, Sam and Stana Dapcevich, Shonosuke Tanaka, Jimmy Larsen and George Alexander Parks, to name a few are included in the brochure.
The brochure and the Evergreen search tool that is still being populated with data is available at juneau.org/library/museum/EvergreenCemetery.php or juneau.org/history/ and at juneau.org/parkrec/. A limited number of brochures are available free of charge at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.
