When Americans enter an apartment building with multiple floors it’s common for them to say they’re on the 1st floor. It’s not in Alaska’s lobby. Capitol building.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”It has a distinct European style in it.” our tour guide Kirk Smith told us during a recent tour. “Right now, you’re not on the first floor; you’re located on the floor below. The reason is because, as a federal building with multiple agencies was required to have a post office within its .”
Smith says that people often ask why this happens. KTOO audience member Sylvan Robb wanted us to discover the answer in this edition of Curious Juneau.
The Capitol was constructed in 1931. It was prior to statehood which is why it was designed for use as an administrative and federal building. Post offices were located on the second floor of six however, the steep streets of Juneau permitted it to construct loading docks and entrances on the floor on the side facing uphill and on 5th as well as Seward Streets. The architects referred to that as the first floor, and the floor below the ground floor.
“In in order to fulfill the requirements of the post office for having a entry point to the street, they needed to name this the ground floor.” Smith said in the lobby.
The entryway into Seward Street is still there although the post office has long gone. When Alaska became an official state in 1959 the building was transformed into State Capitol. In the years following the post office as well as other federal offices were moved to the newly-constructed Juneau Federal Building.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”There’s absolutely nothing to be found,” Smith said. “It is nice if there were an old postal box or window for a teller or something however, there’s no sign of it. It’s just an unfinished hallway. It’s just too bad. .”
A lasting reminder of the building’s historical past but, is the art deco design.
“I prefer to use the style of architecture that’s currently used here as the ‘early twentieth century American post office'” Smith said.
As with other federal structures and post offices constructed during the same period The Capitol was developed in the Treasury Department’s Office of the Supervising Architect.
The designs of the office have proved useful to Local architectural firm Wayne Jensen. He has been involved in numerous tasks at the Capitol throughout the years, including remodels in rooms in the House as well as Senate chambers, as well as the remodel of the committee room. Recently, he was responsible for seismic improvements throughout the building. It took years of hard work between sessions in the legislature.
This is the moment that Jensen discovered a remnant of the post office that was once in use.
Its style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”When we started demolition, we discovered an entrance that was sort of slid to an existing wall” said the man. “I do not remember whether it was marked ‘postoffice on it however, that was the only thing we found. .”
Jensen has examined the architect’s original sketches ink-on-linen. He believes that putting an office for post on the top floor is logical – the floor is higher that the floor below and is easier to access the street.
span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”The ground floor isn’t as big as different floors” Jensen said. “It is a bit of a mountain and then back to the hill, and so it’s slightly truncated. Additionally, it houses the boiler rooms as well as all those things that aren’t accessible areas. The first floor, however, has access to the rear of the building, and also to Seward Street .”
In the initial plan of the floor, it was believed that the entrance that led to Seward Street was an employee entrance while the one that was to 5th Street was the public entrance. The lobby for the post office and workroom occupied the entire east portion of the floor one. Postal workers sort the mail coming in to the workroom before feeding the mail into boxes for post offices.
“I have stories of people who lived in the 1950s and ’60s. They went there daily to collect their mail and it was an area for socializing,” Jensen said.
Jensen stated that the story of the Capitol building is something worth remembering. Before the construction began, Congress only allocated enough money to pay for the half of the block that is now the Capitol building is located today. Juneau residents gathered the rest of the funds and donated the building to the federal government.
It’s a span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”The group came together and said, “Well If the federal government can’t accomplish it, we could do it ourselves”” Jensen said. “It’s extremely Juneauite. Through the years we’ve worked hard to preserve the Capitol in the area and help support the Capitol which was among the very first steps to achieve that .”
The post office could be a largely forgotten piece of the building’s story. This is why people today must pay close careful attention to the is the floor on which they’re in the Capitol.
