'TELEPHONE HILL - City and Borough of Juneau

ARCHAEOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATION - FINDINGS
The surface reconnaissance of the study area produced no evidence of
significant archaeological remains that "y i el d informat·ion important to the
area's history or prehistory" (Title 36 CFR Part 60). A survey of all exposed
areas and former sites of historic structures revealed concrete foundations,
rock and concrete walls, wooden stairways and fences, and vintage telephone
poles.
Most of the stairways, walkways and vintage telephone poles are still in
use.
Surface cultural material consisted mainly of contemporary bottles, cans
and miscellaneous trash. A review of historic, ethnohistoric and ethnographic
sources and interviews with current residents, local historians,
anthropologists and archaeologists prompted Alaska Archives Resource and Records
Management to conclude that there was no' significant Native American occupation
of the study area. Subsurface testing, therefore, was not conducted nor
recommended.
Literary and record sources give a definitive 'account of the early contact
and historic habitation of Telephone Hill and the Juneau area. These sources
revealed seasonal
Native American occupation of Juneau's shoreline and adjacent
creek drainages prior to Euro-American discovery of gold in the area.
However,
the Natives did not permanently inhabit the area until after the gold mining
town was founded. The Auk Tribe established a camp north of town on the beach
near the mouth of Gold Creek; the Taku Tlingits settled south of town on the
beach near the A-J Mill.
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