Ariel and Caliban
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Cantrall House
Smooth Collies Caliban and Arial caught the last of the town’s recent snow while visiting the Moore-Cantrall house at 635 South 3rd Street.
This one-story wood frame house was built in 1878 for William Moore. Natives of Pennsylvania, Moore and his wife Rebecca had arrived in Jacksonville 3 years earlier. His occupation is listed in early censuses as “laborer.”
In 1899, the Moores sold the house to Sarah Cantrall. Sarah had moved to town 9 years earlier after the death of her husband John. John Cantrall had come to Southern Oregon in the late 1850s and mined Sterling Creek during the boom years. In 1865, the Cantrall family left Sterling Creek and took up an 80-acre land claim across the Applegate River from Uniontown. Cantrall continued to mine and farm for the next 25 years, also purchasing adjoining land.
From pioneer days to the present, a rock rimmed pool on the Cantrall’s Applegate River property was a natural swimming hole. In 1960 the Bureau of Land Management built a bridge across the river just above the swimming hole to access some of its forest tracts. The bridge made it possible for the Jackson County Parks Department to purchase 45 acres and develop a large park, now known as the popular Cantrall-Buckley Park in honor of the Cantralls and their neighbors.
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Colvig House
Our smooth Collie club members, Ariel and Caliban, are visiting the Colvig House, the Classical Revival style home at the corner of Fir and S. Oregon—although it may be better known as the “Bozo the Clown” house.
The house was actually built in the late 1870s for George Schumpf. A native of Alsace, Germany, Schumpf was Jacksonville’s town barber for most of his life, also providing “bathing rooms and bathtubs” in his California Street shop. Following the death of his first wife in 1887, Schumpf sold the house to William and Addie Colvig.
William Colvig, a lawyer, served three terms as Jackson County District Attorney. After this appointment, he finally got around to taking the bar exam. Colvig was an authority on Shakespeare and spoke fluent Chinook, the language of the local Indian tribe. He was also a soldier and was among the party of soldiers that first mapped Crater Lake. He was known as “Judge Colvig,” although the title was honorary. The only thing he claimed to be a judge of was “good whiskey”!
We’ve already noted that the house is also known as the “Bozo the Clown House.” Vance “Pinto” Colvig, the youngest of the Colvig children, was the original creator of Bozo the Clown. Pinto, so nicknamed because of his freckles, worked as an animator for Walt Disney and supplied many Disney cartoon voices, including those of Goofy, Pluto and two of the seven dwarfs. He also wrote the song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”