Lauchlin "Lockie" MacKinnon, an immigrant from Nova Scotia, constructed the apartment building.

He came to Alaska in 1886. MacKinnon drifted around mining camps in Alaska and the Yukon, working as a miner and businessman. For a few years in the 1890s he mined at Porcupine north of Haines. In 1893 he crossed the Chilkoot Trail to seek gold in the Fortymile.

In the 1920s, MacKinnon sensed that apartments were replacing boarding houses and hotels, and built the MacKinnon Apartments. He and his wife lived in an apartment in the building until their deaths in the late 1940s.

The MacKinnon Investment Company prospectus appeared August 17, 1925, seeking investors in a three-story frame apartment house to be located at the corner of Third and Franklin Streets. An article in Stroller's Weekly, a local newspaper, dated October 10, 1925, noted that the new MacKinnon Apartments offered numerous modern conveniences. In particular, the article said the builder wired each apartment for electricity. After his second term as territorial governor ended in 1933, George Parks lived in the MacKinnon Apartments for three years.

The building has been continuously used as an apartment house since construction. Sons J. Simpson and Donald L. operated the apartment house after their parents' deaths. In 1959, perhaps anticipating the increased need for housing in the new state's capital, they added five studio units to the back of the building. Other than this addition, the building has not been significantly changed since its construction.

From the National Register Nomination Form for the MacKinnon Apartments