Mendenhall Valley, Juneau Mendenhall Valley, Juneau The Mendenhall Valley (historically Mendenhall, colloquially The Valley) is the drainage area of the Mendenhall River in the U.S. state of Alaska. The valley contains a series of neighborhoods, comprising the largest populated place within the corporate limits of the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska's capital. The valley was formed by Mendenhall Glacier over the course of roughly three thousand years. It was named for physicist and meteorologist Thomas Corwin Mendenhall. The Mendenhall Valley begins ten miles from the downtown area, at the intersection of Egan Drive and Glacier Highway, and ends ten miles farther west
Juneau, Alaska state legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor. Some other executive branch offices have moved elsewhere in the state. Recent discussion has been focused between relocating the seat of state government outside Juneau and building a new capitol building in Juneau; neither position has led efforts to keep the capital in Juneau. Long before European settlement in the Americas, the Gastineau Channel was a favorite fishing ground for the Auke ("A'akw Kwáan") and Taku tribes, who had inhabited the surrounding area for thousands of years. The "A'akw Kwáan" had a village and burying ground here. In the