It took a gold rush to bring electricity to the Rogue River Valley, but in this case, it was the Alaska Gold Rush. When prospective Yukon gold mines did not pan out for Dr. Charles Ray and his brother Col. Frank Ray in 1900, they checked out Southern Oregon and purchased the Braden mine near Gold Hill. But to make it productive, it needed electricity. They began construction of the Gold Ray log “crib” dam in 1902, discovering in the process that electricity was more valuable than gold. By 1907, their Condor Water and Power Company (later part of California-Oregon Power Company, then Pacific Power Company, and now PacificCorp) supplied power not only to numerous gold mines in the region, but also to the cities of Medford, Jacksonville, Central Point, Grants Pass, Rogue River, and Gold Hill.
The transmission line to the small one-story brick building at 225 W. California Street in Jacksonville was completed in 1905. It’s located on an historic parcel of land that once was part of Jacksonville’s Main Street. The original wooden buildings subsequently became Jacksonville’s Chinatown, the oldest Chinatown in Oregon. Although the Chinese were greatly discriminated against and denied property rights, this site was conveyed to Lin Chow in 1859 and later to Leong Chow in 1872. In 1888, a fire originating in David Linn’s furniture factory across the street destroyed the entire block. The lot sat vacant until 1905 when the present brick building was constructed as the Jacksonville power company substation. The building remained in service as an electricity substation until 1940.