My father George Danner Jr, worked for the US forest Service in Juneau as an architect from around 1950 to 1975. During those years the US Forest Service usually transferred many of their employees every 4 to 6 years. My dad was one of the few who stayed in Juneau during his whole employment with the Forest Service. He was born in Juneau in 1914 and because of this, he was also the person other employees went to for local knowledge and history. Because of this and that he was somewhat of a collector of “stuff”, so when things were about to get tossed in the garbage, someone would say “why don’t you see if George might want that”. And this is how he came to be in possession of these maps and surveys. These maps and surveys came in a big wooden vertical map case which lived out in his garage from about 1970 until I got an interest in them around 1983 when they moved to my garage, remaining there until 1988. It is of note here that both of these garages were unheated and his didn’t even have doors. In 1988 I moved them inside and due to their size, put them under my bed until 2010 when I went through them and made an inventory.

Notes on particular items of the donation

The Railway Surveys are interesting in that of all of the railroad surveys in this collection, only 2 were actually constructed. It really makes one think of the dreams and heroic efforts that were required of the people involved in the completion of the surveys in the early part of the 20th century.

Of the Maps, I find the Turner Lake Hydro Project proposed using a large sized log dam to be a good example of people utilizing local materials to accomplish their goals. A similar example is the Nugget Creek power project log dam constructed around the same time (early 1900’s) which is still there.

George Danner III February 10, 2011