1928-1939 John Henry Kelly

Fairbanks

John Henry Kelly was born in 1874 in Lyndon, Ill. He grew up in Seattle, where one of his first jobs was as a hotel bellboy.

Kelly joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898 to Dawson. He got a job as a bookkeeper for the Alaska Commercial Company. He was transferred to Nome in 1901 and then to Fairbanks in 1905. He became an accountant and formed his own accounting firm with Harold Byrd, the Kelly and Bird Accounting Service. Kelly was also an officer of the Mt. McKinley Transportation Company.

Kelly served on the board of trustees for the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines and later the board of regents of the University of Alaska, from 1931 to 1939. Orville Cochran was appointed to take his place on the board.

On April 3, 1941 John Henry Kelly died in his sleep at home, a victim of a heart ailment he had suffered many years ago.

Source:

BOR file