Talk:Mendenhall Valley, Juneau

Population facts needed

When did development begin? when did the first settlers come to mendenhall valley and what is the estimated population of the mendenhall valley- lemon creek region? 99.164.123.146 (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The 1965 dedication program for the original Brotherhood Bridge states that the river was first bridged so that miners could reach properties along Montana Creek. Coincidentally, that specific vicinity appears to be one of the major areas of Juneau's more recent community expansion (past quarter century or so), such expansion hampered as much by the boundaries of Tongass National Forest and the political process involved as by physical barriers. During the early 20th century, the area between Sunny Point and the mouth of the Mendenhall River (called Glacier River in the aforementioned dedication program, though I'm not sure if that's been acknowledged anywhere on here), plus a few areas near the river's banks, were mostly occupied by dairy farms and scattered rural residences. Kendler's, the best known of these dairies, formed the basis of the Juneau International Airport/Nugget Mall area. The valley probably started to hit its stride as a population center somewhere square in the middle of the 20th century. I would have to recheck census data to see when it overtook Juneau proper, but it's always contained the bulk of Juneau's population in my fairly long memory. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 22:36, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

"Intersection"?

Right now the article says:

The Mendenhall Valley, known locally as The Valley, begins ten miles from the downtown area, at the intersection between the Nugget Mall and a McDonald's restauraunt,

This is really strange wording and seems to imply that the buildings themselves are intersecting, which is impossible. Since I'm pretty sure this is just referring to the intersection of Egan Drive and the Glacier Highway, are there any objections if I just change it to say that? —Zero Gravitas 17:26, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope!

Go right ahead.Jarfingle 18:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually Egan Drive and Glacier Highway are the same road which is route 7 so realisticly one road changing its name is not a intersection. but i dont know for sure where the valley is i dont live in Alaska. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.253.142.17 (talk) 01:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• Actually Egan Drive and Glacier Highway are not the same road. Glacier Highway is Route 7. It happens that sections of the old Glacier Highway and Old Dairy Road were removed when the new Egan Drive was built. Because of that, for the short distance from the intersection near Fred Meyer and Bethel Church to the intersection near the McDonald's Egan Drive is Route 7. Otherwise it is not. Google map showing the intersection of Egan Drive and Glacier Highway. The McDonald's is to the north-west of the intersection between Trout Street, Glacier Highway and Egan Drive. Nugget Mall is the large building between Glacier Highway and Mallard Street to the south. In any case, this is an intersection with a traffic light and everything. On the other hand, I'd probably say "The Valley" starts about 0.6 miles to the east where Old Dairy Road, Yandukin Drive, and Egan meet between Fred Meyer and Bethel.

Factual/historical accuracy check. First off, Egan Drive wasn't completed until around 1974 or 1975. Wikipedia didn't come along until 2001. While it may be appropriate in limited contexts, calling Egan Drive "new" suggests that we're content to further push many of the outdated notions existing editors have developed about Juneau (including by those who live(d) in Juneau and should know better?). While the untrained eye may see a separate city and borough and seperate "unincorporated communities" or whatever, legally speaking, any such distinction disappeared in 1970 when voters approved the current charter. The opening of Egan Drive and initial development of the Capital Transit System a few years later helped to eliminate any barriers created by limitations of the transportation infrastructure. There was also the capital move issue. Events such as the AS 1866 crash and a major avalanche of Mount Juneau the following year spurred dormant efforts to move the capital out of Juneau, which united the community for much of the 1970s into the early 1980s. In other words, Juneau's one community and it's been one community. Putting all the emphasis on downtown isn't serving readers who aren't looking for a "by tourists, for tourists" travel guide.

As for the Route 7 designation: reliable information about the history of Alaska's route number designations has been hard to find. It just so happens that I have two different editions of The Milepost handy and not buried in boxes, the 24th ed. (1972) and 66th ed. (2014). In 1972, Alaska Route 7 is mentioned only once, at the top of the log of the Haines Highway. It is not mentioned in the separate Haines section or depicted on the map of Haines, nor is it mentioned in the sections for Juneau, Ketchikan or Petersburg, the communities centered around the remaining portions of the present Route 7. I can't tell if this edition had a supplemental wall map or not, so I dunno whether or not it the route marking would have been depicted there. 2014 did come with a wall map. Unfortunately, that map and the other maps within plus the text itself revealed the same thing, limiting depicting Route 7 to the Haines Highway. It contains a road map of Prince of Wales Island which shows route markings for the Forest Highways on the island itself, but doesn't show Route 7 markings for the Mitkof or Tongass highways.

The Glacier Highway is the old road leading north from (downtown) Juneau to the Mendenhall Valley and beyond. Egan Drive parallels the old road from just east of Centennial Hall to just east of the Brotherhood Bridge. Downtown, the old route is known as Willoughby Avenue and Glacier Avenue until leaving the old Juneau city limits, where it becomes the Glacier Highway and at that point shifts between the old city and borough address grids. There's at least two spots which are too narrow to fit both roads and hence the old road was obliterated in favor of Egan Drive, plus I believe Channel Drive (home to the newspaper, radio studios and a hatchery, among others) is part of the old highway alignment. I'm sure this has changed, but when I was a semi-frequent visitor to Juneau during the 1990s, I couldn't help but notice that 1960s-vintage road signs were found in abundance along the Glacier Highway, which was consistent with other bypassed highway segments elsewhere in Alaska. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 22:36, 25 November 2015 (UTC)