Did you know that the Jacksonville post office is the only independent post office in Jackson County with its own superintendent—a story all to itself. And it’s the oldest continually operating post office in the county since opening in 1854. It’s been located in almost every building in Jacksonville’s historic downtown. With mail now being sent to Portland for processing and people concerned about mailed in ballots in the upcoming election, for the next History Trivia Tuesdays Historic Jacksonville, Inc. will be tracing as much local post office history as we’ve been able to piece together.
The first Jackson County post office was established by William T’Vault in 1852 in the Dardanelles, across the Rogue River from Gold Hill. T’Vault, who founded the now defunct town, was Oregon’s first postmaster general, being named to that position in 1845 soon after the wagon train he commanded reached Oregon City.
T’Vault came to Southern Oregon in 1852 when he learned of the region’s gold strikes. He moved to Jacksonville in 1855, establishing the first newspaper in Southern Oregon, the Table Rock Sentinel, changing its name to the Oregon Sentinel 3 years later.
He also returned to his law practice, and in 1858 was elected to the Territorial Legislature as a slavery and states rights advocate, soon after becoming speaker of the House. He was an early advocate of the “state of Jefferson,” which he pictured as an independent Pacific slave-holding republic. His vision has yet to be realized. T’Vault died in 1869, the last victim of the 1868-1869 smallpox epidemic.