A confluence of events and circumstances, from overbuilt railroads and bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading railroads, low prices for cotton and wheat, high prices of silver, inflation and financial panic at home and abroad, put the U.S. in a depression in 1896.

In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge’s nephew, Harold Coolidge, along with his Harvard classmate Charles Day, secured an assignment from the U.S. Biological Survey to collect bear specimens on Admiralty Island. They stayed for a season with Allen Hasselborg. During that time they named two peaks behind Mole Harbor; Botany Peak and Yellow Bear Mountain. The result proved to be a turning point in Coolidge’s life. That fall at Harvard, he changed his major to zoology and went on to a long and distinguished career as a zoologist and wildlife conservationist.

About 15 miles, as the crow flies, east of Juneau is an island called Admiralty. A little over 90 miles long by about 35 miles wide; this island is the seventh largest island in the United States. The island was named by George Vancouver in honor of his Royal Navy employers, the Admiralty, in 1794.

While thinking about who or what might be in my next article, it occurred to me that there are people who have lived here in Juneau and have done great things but may have slipped into obscurity for one reason or another. A couple of groups immediately came to mind that I have always believed were made up of heroes — the police and the fire departments.