THE JESSE LEE HOME FOR CHILDREN
1824 Phoenix Road
 The
Jesse Lee Home for Children is the second of three child welfare
institutions in Alaska to bear the name. The first was established
at Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands in 1890. The home was
moved to Seward on Resurrection Bay in 1926. Following damage
to the home in the 1964 earthquake, the Jesse Lee Home was
relocated to its present location in Anchorage in 1965.
Agnes Soule was a territorial teacher assigned by Sheldon
Jackson, territorial education superintendent to work in Unalaska.
Shortly after her arrival, she took several orphans into her
home. Several more children were brought to her and she began
to seek aid for the construction of an orphanage. Through
correspondence with her father a Methodist bishop in Maine,
she organized funding for a two building orphanage. Bishop
Soule recommended the name Jesse Lee to honor a pioneer circuit
riding Methodist preacher of the colonial northeastern United
States. Miss Soule (later Mrs. Newell) and Dr. Newell ran
the combination orphanage, school clinic, and welfare post
for most of Unalaska’s home history.
In the late teens and early 1920’s, several factors
lead to the closing of the Unalaska Home. The pandemic Spanish
influenza wiped out entire Alaskan Native coastal villages
during 1918-1919. The Unalaska facility was filled to overflowing.
The home was old and in serious need of repair. In addition,
transportation of children and supplies had become very unreliable
and expensive.
Seward was elected largely because it was Alaska’s
largest port and transportation point. It was believed that
the costs of supplying the facility would be lower because
of the regularly scheduled freight and passenger links with
Seattle.
The home appears to have averaged 120 children. Although
some accounts indicate this number was much higher in the
early years. Unfortunately, enrollment records have not been
located. Numbers did not remain constant as some children
grew up and left, were adopted, or died from tuberculosis.
Some children were not orphans but placed in the home because
their parents were in the Tuberculosis sanitariums in several
locations around the state. Most children came from the Aleutian
Islands or the Seward Peninsula (Aleuts or Eskimos) but children
from all races and regions were represented.
A most significant event during the home’s first full
year in operation was to have one of their own win a statewide
school competition to design Alaska’s flag. John Ben
“Benny” Benson, Jr. a seventh grader won over
700 other contestants. Benny Benson of the village of Chignik
was first placed in the Unalaska home and later traveled with
the other students to the new Seward home. He designed the
now familiar flag of eight stats of gold on a field of blue
representing the North Star and the constellations the “Dipper”
and the “Great Bear.”
In March of 1964, a massive earthquake rocked south-central
Alaska causing widespread damage. Goode Hall, the largest
Jesse Lee building was heavily damaged and later
 condemned
and demolished. The Methodist Church decided to close the
Seward building and re-open a new home in Anchorage for two
reasons. The Seward buildings were not well insulated and
the complex was not economical to heat especially for the
small number of children. In addition, the state of Alaska
was moving away from orphanages and replacing this system
with one oriented around foster care. Now known as Alaska
Children’s Services, this organization still provides
services to children and their families.
In 1966, the Methodist church deeded the Jesse Lee Home to
the city of Seward, who eventually sold the property to the
private owners. Today, after being abandoned for nearly 40
years, the property is again owned by the City of Seward.
Click here for the Compiled
Engineers Report. ~10mb
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