Jesse Lee Home for Children
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Jesse Lee Home for Children
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Alaska Heritage Resources Survey
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| Location | Benson Drive, Seward, Alaska |
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| Coordinates | 60°7′34″N 149°26′47″W / 60.12611°N 149.44639°WCoordinates: 60°7′34″N 149°26′47″W / 60.12611°N 149.44639°W |
| Area | 2.65 acres (1.07 ha) |
| Built | 1926 |
| Built by | John Holm; A.S. Hanson |
| Architect | Stanley Shaw |
| NRHP reference # | 95001146 |
| AHRS # | SEW-003 |
| Added to NRHP | September 29, 1995 |
The Jesse Lee Home for Children is a former home for displaced children on Swetmann Avenue in Seward, Alaska, United States. It was operated by the United Methodist Church from its opening in 1926 until the building suffered damage from a 1964 earthquake and operations were relocated to a new building in Anchorage.
Prior to 1926, the Methodist Church operated children's homes in Nome and Unalaska. The facility at Unalaska, established in 1889 and also functioning as a boarding school, was called the Jesse Lee Home.
In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the Spanish flu pandemic was particularly deadly in remote native villages, leaving more displaced children. The old missions were overfilled, in disrepair, and transportation of supplies and children to these remote locations was unreliable and expensive. Seward was selected as a new location because at that point in time, it was Alaska's largest port and transportation point. Transportation costs would be lower due to regularly scheduled routes directly from Seattle.
Child residents were mainly natives from the Aleutian Islands (Aleut) and Seward Peninsula (Eskimo). In the first year after the school opened in 1926, resident Benny Benson won a competition to design the territorial flag. His design is still in use as the state flag. Benson, who was moved from the previous home in Unalaska, was from the village of Chignik. He was a 13-year-old student who won the competition out of over 700 entries. Fanny Kearns, a young Eskimo woman who was employed as a seamstress at the JLH sewed the first Alaskan flag out of left over cloth. On July 9, 1927, the Balto Building was dedicated and the new flag was raised for the first time at the Jesse Lee Home. The date is still commemorated in the state as Alaska Flag Day.
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