Did you know that Jacksonville’s St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of North 5th and D streets originally faced 4th Street? The lot behind it stood vacant until the spring of 1878 when John Hockenjos purchased the 100’ x 100’ northeast corner property facing 5th Street between D and E streets. By fall, the Oregon Sentinel announced Hockenjos’s intention to build “a number of new residences on the vacant lot back of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he will offer for rent.”
Hockenjos, a native of Baden, Germany, was a carpenter by training. He had arrived in Jacksonville by the late 1860s and for roughly 25 years was one of the town’s most active builders. He is reported to have made repairs to the early wood frame Jackson County Courthouse and the County Clerk’s office, to have built the Sexton’s Toolhouse in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery, to have erected the Methodist Episcopal parsonage, and to have constructed and rented homes throughout town.
Although Hockenjos built the house at 345 North 5th Street as a rental, the family also occupied it for some period of time. Hockenjos died in 1894, but his wife Eva retained ownership of this house until 1915.