Lemon Creek (Alaska)

Lemon Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is primarily filled by the meltwater of Lemon Creek Glacier, as well as another glacier. The Lemon name is said to come from traveling miner John Lemon, who reportedly had a placer mine on the creek in 1879.

Course
Its course takes it past Lemon Creek Correctional Center and passes under a bridge built along Juneau's arterial Glacier Highway before emptying on the tidal flat at the head of Gastineau Channel, 5 miles northwest of the borough of Juneau.

Description
Its drainage area is about 30 sqmi, and its valley penetrates the Coast Range for a distance of about 8 miles. From the south, there are several good-sized tributaries, and the uppermost of these side valleys contains a large glacier, which merges with the ice from the head of the main valley and extends to a point only 6 miles from the mouth of the creek. The valley is a deep one, the surrounding Blackerby and Heintzleman Ridges rising to 3500 - 4000 ft, with peaks above 5000 ft in the headwater region. The stream bed lies north of the central line of the valley, and on this side the tributaries are closely spaced and their channels only slightly incised in the mountain flank. The grade of the main stream is somewhat irregularly distributed. The mouth of the valley is filled by a delta deposit raised only a few feet above high tide and extending upstream for something over a mile. Above this there is a short rock-cut canyon with a low waterfall or cascade at its head. Next comes a narrow stretch of gravelly bottom land expending upstream for nearly a mile and a half, with a grade of perhaps 200 feet per mile. Then comes a cascade, giving a rise of several hundred feet in a distance of half a mile, and above this the grade is somewhat more gentle, and short gravelly flats occur from place to place, separated by reaches of steeper slope extending to the foot of the glacier.

The surrounding neighborhood shares the Lemon name, and is known to locals as "Lemon Creek"; generally a reference to the neighborhood, and not the creek specifically.