MAHONEY HEIGHTS HISTORY STORY - DN

 

By Dave Kiffer

For the Daily News

A century ago this month, the Ketchikan City Council took its first steps to create Ketchikan's first subdivision.

By the early 1920s, Ketchikan had already begun branching out north and south of the Downtown core. But land remained hard to develop along the shoreline. Houses and roads and businesses had to be built on pilings, an expensive and slow process. Local officials began looking at ways to move inland, if possible. Some houses and businesses had already started to move up Ketchikan Creek but it was basically no easier to build there than it was along Tongass Narrows.

Joe Mahoney was a prospector who had come to Alaska during the 1897 Gold Rush and ended up in Ketchikan. One of the areas where he had claims was in the upper Ketchikan Creek area. Other miners also staked claims in that area, most notably James Davis who had 37 claims up there, according to Alaska state historian Rolfe Buzzell in a 1993 historic assessment for the widening of Deermont Street. But Mahoney also built a small cabin in the area and soon people were calling the area "Mahoney Heights."

It helped that Mahoney was well known in the community, primarily as a star player on the early town baseball teams of the 1910s that famously played on the Thomas Basin tide flats. 

By the early 1920s, there was a rudimentary boardwalk from Stedman Street up the hill into the "Mahoney Heights" area where there was a significant amount of flat land around the upper portions of Ketchikan Creek.

In the early 1920s, people had started building small houses in that flat land and the residents of Mahoney Heights urged the City of Ketchikan to annex the neighborhood, according to Buzzell.

In January of 1922, the city obtained title to 86 acres of land from the federal government which also included the Fidalgo Cannery site on Stedman Street and the uplands above the Stedman Thomas area. It was called the "Ketchikan Townsite Addition." The area was surveyed and two main roads, Mahoney and Woodland, were laid out. Side streets such as Lotus, Alamo and Venetia Way were also planned. According to city records, 195 "white" occupants lived in 78 dwellings in the area. 

Withing a couple of months, the city began selling building lots in the area and first dibs were given to the residents already living on the parcels. They were allowed to apply for tile and pay a small fee for the land deeds. By the end of the summer, the remaining lots were offered at market value. By the fall of 1922, 19 residents had received title to their property, including Joe Mahoney. The vast majority of these properties were along the Mahoney Way boardwalk, but several were along what later became Woodland Avenue.

In 1924, the boardwalk was expanded so that vehicles and horse drawn trolleys could use it. A boardwalk was also built along what is now Woodland Avenue. The Ketchikan Chronicle reported on October 22, 1924 that the city was extending sewer lines into the area.

"The first residents of Mahoney Heights were white middle class working people and small business owners," Buzzell wrote in 1993. "In 1924, the first Native family moved into the neighborhood when Casper Mather built a house on Woodland Avenue. The Episcopal Native School closed in downtown Ketchikan in 1925, prompting the federal government to build a school for Native children in Ketchikan."

The November 17, 1926 edition of the Ketchikan Chronicle reported that work was commencing on the new school in Mahoney Heights.

"The new building will be of frame structure, 52X60 feet and modernly equipped in every respect, accommodating approximately 90 children," the newspaper reported, adding that the total cost was in the range of $14,000. "There are three classrooms, closet space and three laboratories included in the plans. The building will be electrically lighted throughout."

In April of 1927, the school was completed and inspected by Charles Hawksworth, the superintendent for the Indian Schools of Southeastern Alaska.

"It is a very attractive structure built on Colonial lines and painted white," the Chronicle reported. "It is located on Mahoney Heights with a beautiful view of the channel and mountains."

One year later, Bishop Peter S. Rowe of the Episcopal Church built St. Elizabeth's Church at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Mahoney Street. The Tsimshian people built the church and Paul Mather was the first minister, according to Buzzell.

"Construction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs school and St. Elizabeth's Church prompted a number of Natives to move from Indian Town up the hill onto Mahoney Heights," Buzzell wrote. "Many were Native women married to white men during the 1930s, Mahoney Heights consisted of fishermen, laborers and middle-class residents. The neighborhood was also ethnically mixed."

In 1934, Mahoney Street's boardwalk was replaced with a graded road approximately 20 feet wide.

In 1936, the city of Ketchikan changed the names of a more than two dozen streets in Ketchikan. Mahoney Street became Deermount Avenue. The name Mahoney Street was added to a small wooden boardwalk just up the hill from the BIA school. There is no record of why the name was changed, although by this point Joe Mahoney was living full-time in his mining cabin near his Mahoney Lake claims on George Inlet.

"Residents continued to use both names (Mahoney and Deermount) for many years," Buzzell wrote. "And both names appeared on the 1946 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map."

To further confuse the issue, many residents referred to "Deermont" Street rather than the official Deermount. That pronunciation continues to the present day.

Joe Mahoney was found dead in his George Inlet Cabin in 1940 at the age of 76.

"Old time baseball fans will recall his playing in the early days, in the early 1900s," the Ketchikan Chronicle noted in its March 3, 1940 obituary. "He was a star of the game and a good man in any position on the field as well as a fine hitter. Mahoney was found in bed in his cabin. He may have died in his sleep."

The neighborhood continued to grow during and after World War II and Deermount Street was extended past the intersection with Woodland Avenue. This area was known as upper Deermount and grew as workers from the pulp mill and other professionals settled there.

In 1947, Alaska officially desegregated its schools and Native children began enrolling in the city schools. The BIA closed the Native school, although it was used for a time to house seventh and eighth grade students from the public schools as well as housing for teachers. The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood purchased the property when it left its hall on Guthrie Way.

In 1962, the Episcopal Church closed St. Elizabeth's and sold the building. It later became the Ketchikan Mortuary.

The city continued to work on Deermount Street, replacing sewer lines and paving it in 1969. In 1978, the Ketchikan Indian Corporation (now Ketchikan Indian Community) replaced the BIA school building with a modern office building.

In 1996, the State Department of Transportation widened lower Deermount to accommodate the increasing number of tour buses using the street to get to the Totem Heritage Center. By that point most of the historic houses along Deermount had been replaced by new structures, but at least two houses from the 1920s were torn down when the road was widened to 35 feet.

Another property that was affected by the 1996 road project was Ireland Transfer and Storage, a company that had been in business in Ketchikan for nearly 80 years and was still owned by the Bartholomew family. The company closed down after it lost a significant amount of its property at the corner of Stedman and Deermount to the road project. 

Ironically, it had been forced to move to the Deermount site in 1971 from its downtown location when the state widened roads in that area.

That Ireland Transfer property, at the foot of Deermont, is the center of Ketchikan Indian Community operations in Ketchikan. The old Mahoney Heights area is now called "Deermont" and extends all the way from Stedman Street up to the city park and the road to the Ketchikan landfill. 

Some old timers, however, still call it "Mahoney Heights."