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Juneau, Alaska, presently incorporated as a unified home rule municipality called the City and Borough of Juneau, was designated the capital of Alaska on June 6, 1900. The organic act passed by the U.S. Congress which established Juneau as the capital also allowed Alaskan communities to incorporate for the first time. Sitka and Nome both established "provisional governments" prior to this; Juneau did not follow suit, but did provide limited public services prior to incorporation, such as fire protection and school instruction.
Following the passage of the organic act, Juneau's incorporation petition was certified and the first election of officials occurred on June 29, 1900. Douglas, located a short distance southwest of Juneau across Gastineau Channel, followed suit by incorporating on March 29, 1902. Twenty-eight individuals served as the city mayor of Juneau, including three acting mayors, while another twenty-five individuals served as mayor of Douglas.
The Greater Juneau Borough was incorporated in October 1963, established by an act of the state legislature earlier that year (Chapter 52, Session Laws of Alaska 1963) which required the most populous election districts in the state to incorporate as boroughs by January 1, 1964. The borough, the first to incorporate as a first-class borough, encompassed the two incorporated cities, several surrounding suburbs and smaller settlements on both sides of Gastineau Channel and along Lynn Canal, plus thousands of square miles of surrounding wilderness. Several years after the borough's incorporation, the legislature passed a bill allowing for boroughs and cities to unify (or merge). Several years after that, Juneau, Douglas and the borough unified to form the current municipality, which incorporated on July 1, 1970. As of the office's last election in March 2016, fifteen people have served as mayor of Juneau under this government.
