Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The Port Chilkoot Company was awarded a $27,000 matching grant from the U.S. National Park Service to restore the historic hospital building at Fort Seward.

The company, which was notified last month that it would receive the grant, plans to repair and upgrade the building’s plumbing and heating and to clean and fix up the back porch.

“The Company’s objective with this grant will be to open the building to be available for office spaces, workshop areas, galleries, shops, etc. It’s a beautiful building and in a marquee location,” Port Chilkoot board member Annette Smith wrote in an email to the CVN.

Since 1975 the building, which is more than 100 years old, has served as the headquarters for Alaska Indian Arts (AIA). But it has been inoperable since 2019, when it was damaged during a cold snap, Port Chilkoot Company board president Lee Heinmiller said. The furnace pump blew and the building froze up, Heinmiller said. The back porch needs a new column and restored decking.

“As far as being a portion of the landmark, it’s critical to that, but it’s also one of the buildings that have been in use for major stuff since AIA moved in there,” Heinmiller said.

Heinmiller said the building’s roof also needs to be restored, but the Park Service grant won’t cover that work. Houses along Officer’s Row have had their roofs replaced, Heinmiller said, but the hospital, barracks and quartermaster’s buildings still have their original roofs, which are prone to leaking.

Repairs could begin as early as April and are expected to take about six months, Heinmiller said.

“This was the best building in the best town. It has history, architecture, location, and the people who built it and then rebuilt it decades ago put their hearts into the job,” local resident Joe Parnell wrote in a July letter to the CVN. Parnell has publicly lobbied Port Chilkoot Company and the borough to fix the hospital building as well as the barracks building at the bottom of the Parade Grounds.

A full restoration of the barracks building would cost millions of dollars, Heinmiller said at an August planning commission meeting.

Still, over the last few years the company has worked to spruce that building up. “The large, pillared front porch now has a frieze of three historical information signs for visitors to view and select windows covered with paintings of early days at the Fort,” Smith said. “The back side of the building has been buttoned up by replacing siding lost by heavy wind and weather.”

Last summer the company hosted historical tours and an auction to fundraise for restoration work on the barracks. The auction helped to clear out items that had long taken up space in the building.