Sitka, with its deep Tlingit as well as Russian and American colonial history, has 23 of Alaska’s approximately 450 historic properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Eight of these are National Historic Landmarks, sites of significance to the history of the United States.
– Castle Hill, where the ceremony transferring Russia’s claims to Alaska to the United States was held, on Oct. 18, 1867. It also was the site of the first official raising of the 49-star United States flag on July 4, 1959, minutes after Alaska became a state. The hill was the site of the Tlingit fort Noow Tlein, and later site of the Russian American Company’s manager’s offices and residence.
– The ANB Founders Hall at 235 Katlian Street was built in 1914 by the Alaska Native Brotherhood, founded in 1912 to fight for recognition of land ownership and for civil rights for Alaska Native people. The hall houses Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 1 and Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 4. ANB celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012, and during the event the ANB Hall was renamed the ANB Founders Hall. With its stage, kitchen, wooden floors and historic photos, it’s a popular venue for community events, including Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
– Building No. 29 (the Tilson Building), 206 Lincoln St., until several years ago housed the Log Cache store on the first floor. Built in the mid-1800s, it is one of two Russian America Company buildings remaining in Sitka. It originally served as a residence for Russian America Company employees.
– St. Michael’s Cathedral, in the middle of Lincoln Street in the heart of downtown Sitka, serves the Russian Orthodox Church congregation. The building is a replica of the 1848 church, which burned in a fire in 1966 that destroyed much of downtown.
– The Sitka Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Coastal Defenses is comprised of the Naval Operating Base, the only military defense of the North Pacific at the start of World War II, and the portion of the U.S. Army harbor defenses on the Makhnati Island Causeway, now Fort Rousseau State Historical Park. Some of the Navy facilities on Japonski Island house the State of Alaska’s Mt. Edgecumbe High School and the University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus. The former Navy boat repair shop is under rehabilitation by the Sitka Maritime Heritage Society as a maritime heritage center. The Causeway portion of the National Historic Landmark is accessible by water, on the far side of Sitka’s airport.
– The Russian Bishop’s House, 501 Lincoln Street, is a two-story log structure built in 1843 and used as the bishop’s residence, a church office, a school in the late 1800s, and a chapel. It was badly deteriorated when the National Park Service took ownership in 1973 and in the next 16 years restored it to its1853 state. It now houses exhibits and is open to the public.
– Redoubt St. Archangel Michael Site (Gajaa Héen, Old Sitka) – about 7 miles north of Sitka – had a Russian sea otter hunting base 1799-1802. Russians negotiated with Sitka Tlingit leaders in order to build it in 1799, but relations soured, leading to its destruction in 1802. No buildings are left but there is signage and several trails. It’s now Old Sitka State Historic Site.
– Sheldon Jackson College campus is the most recent addition to the list of Sitka’s National Historic Landmarks, included in 2001. The school was founded by Presbyterian missionaries in 1878 and moved to this site in 1882, as a training school for Native boys. Later it became a boarding high school and then a college. The college closed its academic operations in June 2007, and the historic campus is now owned by nonprofits, including the Sitka Music Festival (Stevenson Hall), and the Sitka Sound Science Center (Sage Building). The Sitka Fine Arts Camp, which operates summer art camps, owns the other buildings on the historic quadrangle. It’s also used around the year for other community events, such as meetings, exhibits, art making, receptions and theater productions.
– Sitka’s newest Register property, designated in 2024, is the Sitka Woman’s Club building at Harbor Drive and Maksoutoff Street. The significance of this 1897 cottage, built by miner Hans Christian Pande, is for the women’s history represented by the various iterations of the woman’s club to which the building was sold, for one dollar, by the Mills family in 1951. (The same Mills family also built two homes also on the Register.)
--The Cable House, 2 Lincoln Street, was built in 1904 as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph system office. The building, at the Sitka Channel end of Lincoln Street, houses its owner, public radio station Raven Radio or KCAW, and a restaurant, the Beak.
– Abner Murray apartment building and two cottages, located in the 200 block of Seward Street, were built in Douglas, Alaska, as housing for miners at the Treadwell Mines. After the mines closed, the buildings were dismantled and barged to Sitka and rebuilt in the 1920s by owner Abner Murray.
– The Sitka Pioneers Home was built in 1934. The pioneer home, mainly for men who had come to Alaska during the gold rushes, was originally established in 1913 in a former Marine Corps barracks on this site. A statue, called The Prospector, has stood on the front lawn since 1949. Also catching attention are the grounds themselves, which are beautifully kept and feature a wide variety of plants. Today it is a state-run nursing home.
– St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 611 Lincoln Street, was built in 1899 on Lincoln Street facing what is now Crescent Harbor. Alaska’s first Episcopal bishop, Peter Trimble Rowe, his first wife, and one of their sons are buried alongside the church.
– St. Peter’s Episcopal Church See House, behind the church, was designed and built by Bishop Rowe in 1905.
– Sheldon Jackson Museum, located on the Sheldon Jackson College campus, was built in 1897 to house Native artifacts, and was named after the Presbyterian missionary, educator and collector who founded both the school and the eponymous museum. It was the first concrete building in Alaska. It’s now part of the Alaska State Museums and is open to the public.
– Emmons House, located at 611 Lincoln and Baranof streets, was built in the 1890s by the artist Katherine May (Baker) and her husband, ethnologist George Thorton Emmons, son of Capt. George Foster Emmons, commander of the USS Ossipee when that vessel came to Sitka at the time of the Alaska transfer in 1867. It’s now a private residence.
– Hanlon-Osbakken House, 419 Lincoln Street, now Sitka Rose Gallery, was built in the 1890s by Anna (Schmakoff/Richter) and John Hanlon as a residence for the Hanlon family. It was the home of the Hanlons’ daughter, Margaret, and her husband, John Osbakken, from the 1930s until Margaret Osbakken moved to the Pioneers Home in 1991.
– The May Mills House, in the 300 block of Seward Street, is a three-story frame house built by Miss Loretta May Mills and completed in 1914. The large attic was used for dances and parties. The building now houses businesses. The Balm of Gilead tree standing in the front yard was planted by Miss Mills.
– W.P. Mills House, 1 Maksoutof Street, is located on a small island connected to downtown Sitka by a causeway. It was constructed by May Mills’ brother, merchant W.P. Mills, in 1916 on a stone foundation the Russians build in the early 1900s for a windmill and later roofed over for use salting and storing fish. It is a private residence.
– Sitka National Historical Park includes the Russian Bishop’s House and what was first known as Sitka National Monument. The monument was founded in 1910 to preserve the site of the Tlingit fort of Shiskinoow and battleground where the Kiks.adi and Russians fought in 1804. The 54-acre park is one of the oldest and smallest of the National Park System.
– U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Seismological and Geomagnetic House, located on Seward Street, is a two-story frame building with a cement basement built into bedrock. It was built in 1916 to house offices and living quarters for those in charge of the Coast and Geodetic Survey geological and meteorological observations.
– The former U.S. Post Office and Court House, 100 Lincoln St., was built in 1938. In 1987, a new post office was built on Sawmill Creek Road, and the old post office building is now Sitka’s City Hall.
– Sitka National Cemetery is one of the smallest national cemeteries in the U.S., and the only one west of the Mississippi during World War I. The oldest burial site dates to 1867. President Calvin Coolidge signed an executive order designating it as Sitka National Cemetery in 1924.
