WELCOME TO JUNEAU, where an abundance of scenic beauty and shopping opportunities await you. Alaska's capital city is a vibrant community where adventures of all sorts are never far away. Hiking trails, the state capital building and abundant wildlife are just a short walk from the cruise-ship dock.

Juneau has served as Alaska's seat of government since 1906, but that's just a small part of its rich history. Long before the gold rush that resulted in the town you see today, Juneau was home to the Tlingit, the indigenous people of the area. Each summer, they would travel from their village in nearby Auke Bay to a fishing camp at the mouth of a stream now called Gold Creek.

It is believed that Juneau is where the Tlingit first made contact with prospectors, who observed the native Alaskans using gold in a variety of ways. Two of those prospectors were Joseph Juneau and Richard Harris, who were led by a Tlingit guide to gold in the nearby mountains. The find was the first major Alaskan gold discovery, and in 1880, nearly 20 years before the Nome and Klondike Gold Rushes, the pair staked out a 160-acre town site on the beach. A boomtown of miners and Russian fur traders was soon born.

After the loose, easily found gold in the streambeds became scarce, Juneau quickly grew from a boomtown to a center for large-scale industrial mining. For a few decades, the mining continued; legendary mines such as the Alaska-Gastineau, the Perseverance and the Alaska-Juneau (or A-J) gained world-wide acclaim. But by 1944, the local mines were largely out of production, and the city's main focus became—and remains today—government, logging, tourism and commercial fishing.

The Juneau you'll enjoy on your visit maintains a definite frontier flavor, especially in downtown's Gold Rush Historic District. The narrow hillside streets and friendly residents lend to a small-town atmosphere, leaving little doubt as to why Juneau is frequently named our nation's loveliest state capital. Along many of the avenues, you'll find lamp posts trimmed with colorful banners and flower baskets—just a few of the many ways Juneau says "welcome" to its visitors.