Guests of the Historic Emmons House enjoy incredible views with easy access to trails and the oceanfront from this centrally located home. Overlooking the downtown harbor and one block from downtown, this spacious 3-bedroom home offers a convenient base for all Sitka adventures, along with views of the Pacific Ocean dotted with forested islands, mountains topped with alpine meadows, eagles flying,
and fishing boats coming and going from port.
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When people think of Alaska, a lot of times they think about how far away it is; after all, it is both the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States! However, Sitka is located along the Alaska Panhandle in Southeast Alaska, situated on Baranof Island, 850 air-miles northwest of Seattle. Tlingít history, art, and culture are prevalent no matter where you go in Sitka, and this immersive experience truly makes Sitka extra special. Sitka was the capital of the Russia's Americn colony and was the site of the actual transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States in 1867. It remained the Alaska capital until 1900. Since the day of its founding in 1804, Yankee, French and English sea captains referred to Sitka as the 'Paris of the Pacific.'
Sitka, with a population around 9,000 people, is an island community boldly living between the mountains and sea, where the arts flourish and an ancient native culture still thrives. Surrounded by rainforest, jagged peaks reflecting in the sea waters, residents share their home with brown bears, bald eagles and all five species of Pacific salmon.
“Sitka…where all our men are hardy, our women are even hardier, and our children are worth bragging about.”
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Captain George Foster Emmons (1811-1884), commander of the USS Ossipee, sailed into the Sitka harbor with the United States and Russian Commissioners for the ceremony transferring the Alaskan territory to the United States on October 18, 1867. He began his distinguished career as a midshipman on April 1, 1828, and as a lieutenant aboard the USS Peacock, he participated in the Wilkes Exploring Expedition of 1838-42, which discovered the Antarctic Continent. He was assigned command of the expedition's overland party conducting surveys and exploration from Puget Sound south to San Francisco. He also served in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and American Civil War (1861-1865). He became commodore in 1868, Chief of the Hydrographic Office in 1870, and Rear Admiral in 1872. As a Rear Admiral, he commanded the Philadelphia Navy Yard until his retirement in 1873. The USS Emmons, sponsored by his granddaughter Mrs. Peacock, was a Gleaves-class destroyer launched on August 23, 1941. The ship was commissioned on December 5, 1941, and was sunk by the USS Ellyson on April 7, 1945, after suffering five hits from Kamikaze aircraft on the afternoon of April 6, 1945. In 1895, nearly 30 years after his father sailed into Sitka, his son, U.S. George Thornton Emmons (1852-1945), and his wife May, built this house for their family. The original structure was a boxy American Foursquare design that followed the Russian public and residence building style which dominated the Sitka scene during the transitional period of architecture (1890-1930). It was the first house in Sitka to have plastered walls and was reputed as the place where important visitors such as John Muir dined. In 1929, the Emmons House was captured in a historic photograph of aviation history when the bi-plane named "Sitka" carrying a U.S. Navy crew conducting a geological survey in Southeast Alaska landed on the beach in front of the house. By 1966, the harbor was dredged and made Crescent Harbor ideal for private and commercial boats. The site of the Emmons House was and still is one of the most desirable 'view lots' in town and in a line with St. Peter's by-The-Sea Episcopal Church and its rectory, the See House, Yaw House, deGroff-Vanderbilt House and the cottages and campus of Sheldon Jackson College on the old Beach Road, now Lincoln Street on Crescent Harbor. The Emmons House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Lt. Emmons was stationed on the USS Pinta, a 137-foot long x 26-foot beam single screw, iron-hulled tug, which patrolled the Alaskan waters protecting the seal fisheries. He served in Sitka for only four years and then became an ethnographic photographer. He was particularly interested in the Native cultures of Southeast Alaska, collecting many Tlingit artifacts, but only those pieces no longer used by the people, and carefully recorded the history of each piece. He frequently returned to the area to continue his research. Some of his collected artifacts were donated or purchased by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the University of Washington Seattle Burke Museum. Some of these objects have been returned to the native community. His photographs are archived in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Emmons wrote several books including "The Chilkat Blanket," "The Basketry of the Tlingit," and "The Tahltan Indians." His ethnological report on the Native tribes of Southeast Alaska remains an important resource. After Emmons died in 1945, pioneering archaeologist and ethnographer of northwestern North America, Frederica de Laguna, used his manuscript to edit and publish as the book, "The Tlingit Indians," a project she had begun in 1955 and finally published in 1991. Emmons is also known for his work for President Theodore Roosevelt on the 1901 Alaskan-Canadian Boundary Dispute, as well as his "Report on the Conditions of the Natives of Alaska" requested by Roosevelt. On January 19, 1905, Roosevelt wrote to the Senate and House of Representatives: "Lt. Emmons had for many years peculiar facilities for ascertaining the facts about the natives of Alaska and has recently concluded an investigation made on the ground by my special directions. I very earnestly ask the attention of Congress to the facts set forth in this report as to the needs of the native people of Alaska. It seems to me that our honor as a nation is involved in seeing that these needs are met. I earnestly hope that legislation along the general lines advocated by Lt. Emmons can be enacted."
