The facility at Unalaska, established in 1889 and also functioning as a boarding school, was called the Jesse Lee Home, named after a Methodist minister in the US northeast during colonial days.

[2] In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the Spanish flu pandemic was particularly deadly in remote Native villages, leaving more displaced children.

Fanny Kearns, a young Eskimo woman who was employed as a seamstress at the JLH sewed the first Alaskan flag out of leftover cloth.

Another Aleut student at Jesse Lee Home, Peter Gordon Gould from Unga Island overlapped with Benny Benson when the school first moved from Unalaska.

Additional buildings on the property included a superintendent's house, barn, schoolhouse, residence, garage, and cold storage.

The primary buildings were painted camouflage and a temporary Fort Raymond Army Base occupied part of the home's property.

The Friends of the Jesse Lee Home was named the entity responsible for the ongoing operation and maintenance of the project.

[10] The State of Alaska appropriated a total of $8,000,000 towards developing how the Balto School would use the building, prosecuting A&E, and renovating the portions of the Jesse Lee Home that were still standing.

[12] As of August 30, 2019 FJLH admitted "not a significant amount" of money had been spent on these features and the conditions for FLJH retain ownership were not met.