The Laundry & Quarters, an enchanting Jacksonville cottage, has been an ice cream shop, a doll museum, a perfumery, and an antique store among other uses. 

However, this building at 215 North 5th Street was constructed around 1915 for the Rogue River Valley Abstract Company, what we would today call a real estate title business. It is believed to have been the first reinforced concrete building constructed in Jacksonville, Oregon. 

The building immediately to the north, now the Magnolia Hotel, was built around the same time for the Rogue River Sanitarium. When the County seat was moved to Medford in 1927, the Abstract Company appears to have moved as well and the building was converted into the Sanitarium’s laundry. It apparently remained so for quite a few years since the laundry plumbing still existed well into the 1970s. In fact, the building’s current owner reports that when they wash the floors they don’t have to use soap because the floors create their own suds!

The building at 125 W. California Street in Jacksonville now occupied by the J’ville Tavern was once the Anderson & Glenn General Store. Built in 1859, it was one of the few “fire proof” brick buildings to actually survive the major fires of 1874 and 1884 that took out all the surrounding structures. Anderson was one of Jacksonville’s first merchants. James Glenn joined him in partnership in 1859. Born in Virginia around 1825, Glenn was one of the 49-ers who came west seeking gold. He later turned his hand to farming and became a large landowner with investments in quartz mining and a flour mill. In 1859, he was Treasurer of Jacksonville when it was first incorporated and the town’s 3rd wealthiest citizen. In 1862, Glenn married Minerva Gass, 20 years his junior. Glenn apparently continued in the general merchandise business until the mid-1870s. By 1875, he had moved to Alameda, California where he was a “real estate investor.” The Anderson & Glenn brick store continued to be used as a general merchandise store into at least the early 1900s.

One of the reasons Cornelius Beekman closed his bank in 1912 was the 1907 opening of the Bank of Jacksonville on the ground floor of Red Men’s Hall across California Street at the corner of South 3rd.  However, it turns out that the Bank of Jacksonville was not exactly on the “up and up”!

In August of 1920, its President, W.H. Johnson, was arrested and indicted on 30 felony counts including misstatement of the bank’s condition, receiving monies in a known insolvent banking institution, false certification of checks, and making false statements to a bank examiner.  The President of the Bank of Jacksonville became one of the more distinguished “guests” of the Jackson County jail.

Johnson was not only bank President and cashier, he was also City Treasurer and deacon and treasurer of the Jacksonville Presbyterian Church.  Johnson was convicted and spent 10 years in the state penitentiary.  Dozens of prominent citizens were eventually charged with aiding and abetting the defrauding of the bank—including the Jackson County Treasurer. 

Depositors were both shocked and panicked—bank monies were not insured!  In 1930, when the investigation was finally closed and the remaining bank assets liquidated, depositors received at best 17 cents on the dollar.  Most lost their life savings; the County lost $107,000. 

While Cornelius Beekman’s late 19th Century banking practices may not have been exactly orthodox, they were both ethical and community oriented.  Learn more about them in Historic Jacksonville’s Beekman Bank “Behind the Counter” tours every weekend this summer.

Regarding the C.C. Beekman Bank, Jacksonville’s original Wells Fargo agency and the oldest financial institution in the Pacific Northwest, one of the questions docents are frequently asked is “Was the bank ever robbed?” It turns out there’s a “yes” and “no” answer!

In December 1938, long after the bank had been closed and declared a museum, some guns were stolen. No other losses were reported.

However, there was a “yeggman’s plot to rob the Bank in 1913 that was thwarted by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the local sheriff.”  According to the March 17, 1913, Ashland Tidings¸ “Because of its isolation and the lack of police protection it was viewed by the yeggs as ‘soft.’”  The Pinkertons had received a “inside” tip to this effect and arranged for men to guard the building and watch incoming trains.  As a precautionary move, much of the money in the safes along with valuable papers were shipped elsewhere.  After local residents became curious as to why armed men were wandering around the building at night, the sheriff’s office admitted there was a plot to rob the Bank.  Once the robbers’ plans became public, the attempt was never made.

Don’t miss your chance to “Step Behind the Counter” of the Beekman Bank this weekend!  Museum “banking hours” are 11am to 3pm. You can take a self-guided tour of the or interact with a costumed docent who will gladly share as little or as much information as you might like about 19th century banking practices and Beekman’s personal way of doing business.

Cornelius C. Beekman erected his second bank building in 1863 at the corner of California and North 3rd streets in Jacksonville. Begun as a gold dust office in 1856, Beekman saw over $40 million in gold cross his counters during Jacksonville’s heyday in the 1800s—equivalent to over $1 billion in today’s currency! Beekman’s Bank is the oldest financial institution in the Pacific Northwest and remains furnished exactly as it was when Beekman closed and locked the doors for the last time in 1915. Explore the “Secrets & Mysteries of the Beekman Bank” during 45-minute candlelight tours beginning at 6, 7, and 8 p.m. on April 5 and 6. Admission, $5. Reservations required!

The oldest part of the Bella Union Restaurant and Saloon at 170 W. California Street was constructed in 1874 by pioneer woodworker and builder David Linn after the fire of 1874 destroyed many of the original buildings in Jacksonville. Linn had purchased the lot in 1856 and erected a one-story brick building to house his woodworking shop. After Linn relocated his business to the corner of California and Oregon, he rented the space to a series of tenants, including Prussian native Henry Breitbarth. Breitbarth operated the original Bella Union Saloon at this location from 1864 to 1871. It was one of 7 saloons in early Jacksonville and offered its customers billiards and liquors.

The building that is now the Blue Door Garden Store at 130 West California Street in Jacksonville was built around 1862 by German-born John Neuber to house his jewelry store. Neuber was Jacksonville’s first goldsmith and silversmith. He specialized in solid gold buckles for women’s belts. While running to fight one of the periodic fires that broke out in the town’s early wooden structures, Neuber incurred severe head injuries. In 1874 he was declared insane by the Jackson County commissioners and ordered to the state insane asylum where he died a year later.

Constructed around 1855, the Brunner Building at 170 S. Oregon Street was the second brick building erected in Jacksonville and remains the town’s and Oregon’s oldest brick building still standing. Jacob Brunner was an early arrival to the young gold mining camp and by 1854 had established himself as a merchant carrying one of the heaviest stock of goods. A year earlier, Brunner had purchased the Main and Oregon corner lot at the new settlement’s first commercial street intersection. By January 1856 he was advertising his “fire-proof brick” store. An 1860 rear addition made it not only the “largest store building in Jackson County” but also “the largest south of Salem.” Brunner was among the first elected Trustees of Jacksonville after the town government was organized in 1860. However, by 1863 he had sold the “Brunner Building.” Belatedly catching “gold fever,” he appears to have moved on to the mines of southern Idaho.

The southeast corner of Oregon and California streets has been the site of a hotel almost since Jacksonville was founded.  As early as November 1852, Jesse Robinson claimed “squatters rights” to an existing 2-story wood frame structure.  The “Robinson House” became a “private boarding house patronized by the elite.”  Austin Badger and Nelson Smith purchased the building in late 1855, renamed it the Union Hotel, and enlarged it. 

When Badger and Nelson couldn’t pay their debts, the Union Hotel was sold to Louis Horne who rechristened it the U.S. Hotel.  Horne “improved” the hotel in 1868 by adding a 50’ x 30’ hall fronting on E. California.  The 2nd floor, resting on “steel springs,” was made expressly for dancing; the ground floor housed offices and shops.  Three years later a skating rink was opened in “Horne’s Hall.”

The disastrous 1873 fire which leveled many of the wood frame structures on California Street was believed to have originated in a flue of the U.S. Hotel.  The fire destroyed everything on the block…except for Horne’s chicken coop.  The property was subsequently sold at a sheriff’s sale and then resold to brick mason George Holt, and his wife, hotel proprietress Jeanne DeRoboam Holt.  George fired the bricks for his wife’s long dreamed-of, brick hotel.  The brick U.S. Hotel, the structure we know today, opened in 1880 with a Tammany Day celebration, a Fourth of July Ball, and a visit by President Rutherford B. Hayes.

From around the mid-1890s to 1962, the Lyden House stood on the corner of California and Oregon streets at the site of today’s telephone exchange building in Jacksonville. John Lyden and his wife Mary ran the boarding house, charging 35 cents for a night’s lodging in one of its 11 rooms. Rooms were furnished with wash stands, a pitcher, a wash bowl, a chamber pot commode, a “well supplied” towel rack, an iron bedstead with ample bedding, and a good supply of “Buhac” used to discourage unwanted bedfellows. The hotel was usually full by nightfall. About 1903, Mary Lyden and 2 of her daughters started the “Hooligan Restaurant.” It became famous for its “good homey table” and “wonderful filling meals,” served for 65 cents. Special dinners could also be ordered. The enterprising Lydens also carried a good supply of items such as pots, pans, canteens, and other tinware in demand by miners and prospectors still hoping to strike it rich in the hills around Jacksonville.

Jacksonville was home to the first Chinatown in Oregon, located along West Main in the area where Gogi’s, Elan Guest Suites, and Veterans Park are now to be found. This area was the town’s original commercial center, but as businesses relocated to California Street in the 1850s, this block became home to hundreds of Chinese workers brought here by labor bosses to work the gold mines. As the gold played out, the Chinese Quarter was gradually abandoned. In 1888, most of what were by then derelict buildings burned in one of Jacksonville’s many fires.!

A reader responded to last week’s history trivia about the Democratic Times building at the corner of C and North 3rd streets, noting that anyone who thinks political opinion is too radical in 2020 needs to look back to the election of 1876 and the Times’ coverage.  So, for this week, Historic Jacksonville, Inc. thought we would follow that train of thought and expand on Jacksonville’s Democratic Times. The paper was established by Charles Nickell, a boy genius, who became sole owner at the age of 17.  It was a solid success from as early as 1869 right down to the 20th Century.  Aside from Portland papers, it had the largest newspaper circulation in Oregon.  Nickell’s editorial policy embraced the Democratic party and championed its leaders.  [This was before the Republican and Democratic parties switched policy positions and the Democratic party, which had been pro-Confederacy, continued in that vein, promoting states’ rights and opposing civil rights for African Americans.]  No one could accuse Charles Nickell of being objective. Today he would be sued out of business before nightfall, but at that time, readers apparently appreciated an editor who told them how to think.  Nickell seems to have enjoyed the tacit dispensation to do just that.  He was a distinguished and influential citizen until the turn of the century when he unfortunately brought about his own downfall by entering into some shady deals that were beyond the limits of the law.  But that’s another story….

Early Jacksonville had a succession of newspapers over the years, many of them competing and espousing opposing political viewpoints. When the Democratic News plant was destroyed in the fire of 1872, it rose again as the Democratic Times. Initially housed in the Orth Building on South Oregon Street, the Times soon outgrew that space and established its own offices at the corner of C and North 3rd streets. The Times lasted into the early 1900s when it merged with the Southern Oregonian. Depression era miners of the 1930s uncovered the Times doorstep as they undermined almost every inch of Jacksonville. The current private residence was built as a rental property in the 1930s over one of these old mine shafts.

The Christmas parties have begun, and one of the favorite establishments for holiday celebrations in early Jacksonville was the Franco-American Hotel.  You may be familiar with Madame Jeanne DeRoboam Holt’s grand brick U.S. Hotel which she opened in 1880, but over 20 years earlier she had established the Franco-American Hotel. 

It was located at the southwest corner of Oregon and Main streets in Jacksonville where the Jacksonville Inn cottages are now.  The Franco-American became a famous regional hostelry and the leading hotel and stage stop in Jacksonville, noted for its “table d’hôte,” and holiday balls “worthy of the patronage of epicures and connoisseurs.” 

It burned to the ground in 1886.

In the late 1800s Jacksonville was the hub of Southern Oregon’s commerce and government. During this “exuberant period of American capitalism,” some of Jacksonville’s brick buildings also doubled as billboards featuring large painted signs promoting local businesses. When ownership changed, a new sign might be painted over an old one. These historic brick business ads, known as “ghost signs, were painted by “wall dogs.” Wall dogs, who were usually itinerant sign painters, were a unique combination of muralist and rock climber. Their designs and execution were done by hand while the painter hung from the side of the building. They were called wall dogs because they worked like dogs and they needed to be tethered, or leashed, to the wall. Each wall dog typically mixed his own paint formula, but all formulas contained large quantities of lead—the element that made wall dog careers short lived but ensured the survival of these ghost signs to this day.

The 1854 date on the building’s historical marker is correct, but it was not the site of a butcher shop. The “fire-proof store” was constructed in 1861 for Israel and Robert Haines, replacing a wooden building at the same location they had occupied since arriving in Jacksonville 7 years earlier. 
This brick structure is one of the oldest commercial buildings to survive 3 major fires that ravaged the town. The brothers’ variety store occupied the building until the mid-1860s when they experienced financial difficulties. Robert went on to study medicine and relocated to San Francisco. Israel (shown here) read law, ran for Oregon Congressman in 1864, and was admitted to the Bar in Salem. He later moved to eastern Oregon where he became a prominent Baker City lawyer and politician and founded the town of Haines. 

Post-1866 records show a series of short-term occupants until Louis Solomon moved his mercantile business to this location following his $8,000 loss in the 1874 fire. He was still occupying the building in 1888 when another devastating fire wiped out much of that end of town. However, “the fire proof character of Solomon’s store building was fully demonstrated, as the flames were raging against the rear wall fully half an hour before being extinguished, without raising the temperature inside.”

Early in 1852, soon after news of the gold discovery in Jacksonville spread to California, Kenny and Appler, two packers from Yreka, established the first trading post on this site.  They stocked it with a few tools, clothing, boots, “black strap” tobacco, and a liberal supply of whiskey, essential items for an infant gold mining camp.

By 1856, their tent had been replaced by a wooden store and then by a brick storehouse.  In 1860, merchants Abraham and Newman Fisher acquired this prime corner location for their dry goods and general merchandise store.  Fires consumed their stores in both 1868 and 1874.  Despite a $28,000 loss in the latter conflagration, the Fisher brothers rebuilt, and the 1874 A. Fisher & Brothers structure still stands today—although it has been through quite a few changes.

One of its longest tenants was the Marble Corner Saloon also known as the Marble Arch Saloon.  The saloon occupied the building from around 1890 to 1934.  The saloon was presumably named after the Jacksonville Marble Works which in 1888 was located across the street…or because the saloon’s recessed entryway was tiled with marble from its neighbor.

The Scheffel family purchased the building in 1868 and moved into it in 1871.  It was Scheffel’s for the next 50 years, first an antique store then a popular specialty toy store.  We’re delighted that the Kranenburg and Butler families are continuing the tradition of being a children’s toy and specialty story—especially since the Happy Alpaca is now the only one in the Rogue Valley!

Did you know that Jacksonville has had a barber shop since the 1850s?

The shop itself has moved around a bit for most of the time it has stayed in its current vicinity, moving between 135, 145, 155, and 157 W. California Street and the ground floor of the 1870s Masonic Hall.   

One of the longest serving barbers, and the first town barber “with training,” was George Schumpf.  In 1873 he purchased Blackwell’s barbershop lodged in the notorious El Dorado Saloon.  The saloon stood on the corner of California and Oregon streets from 1852 until the building was destroyed in the town fire of 1874 along with most of the town’s early wooden structures,

Schumpf immediately rebuilt, erecting the brick structure at 157 W. California, and by November of that year he was occupying his new brick establishment.  In addition to shaves and haircuts for men (and women), patrons could also enjoy “neat bathing rooms and bathtubs” where they could obtain “a bath, hot or cold.”  Although Schumpf lost ownership of his shop in in 1882 due to poor business speculations, he remained “the town barber” until his death in 1897. 

We know that a Mr. Murphy was operating the barbershop in 1911 at the current site, and that a William Puhl was subsequently the barber (and subject to a rather messy Halloween trick—see our Holiday History website page). In the 1930s the barbershop occupied a shop facing S. Oregon Street in the Masonic Hall, and in the 1950s, the barbershop briefly occupied a building at the corner of North 4th and California (our current People’s Bank) before returning to its current location.

The banks of Jackson Creek across from Mary Ann Drive and Reservoir Road were the site of The Jacksonville Brick & Tile Co., one of the biggest brick kilns in Southern Oregon. Incorporated in 1908 by German immigrant Peter Ensele and his sons, the brickyard could burn 200,000 bricks every 6 weeks. The steep banks of nearby Jackson Creek had previously been the site of a major gold strike. When the gold played out, the rich clay supplied the bricks for major projects in Jacksonville, Ashland, and Medford. But with gold flakes still sprinkled throughout the site, “rich clay” took on a new meaning. To this day, flakes of gold still work their way out of Jacksonville Brick & Tile Co. brick buildings.

Stone mason J.C. Whipp came to Jacksonville from Portland in 1883 to build the foundation for Jackson County’s historic courthouse, including laying its cornerstone. He opened his Jacksonville Marble Works around 1885. They were originally located “just north of town,” but after the 1888 fire destroyed David Linn’s furniture factory, he moved them to the corner of California and Oregon streets. Whipp was described as “doing the best of work,” and having “no peer in this part of the state.” Whipp may be best known for his many marble monuments in Jacksonville’s pioneer cemetery as well as cemeteries throughout southern Oregon and northern California, but he also built culverts and bridges. In 1887, he turned the Methodist Episcopal Church 180 degrees to face the new North 5th Street thoroughfare, and in 1893 he created a stone mantelpiece that won a blue ribbon at the Chicago World’s Fair. Whipp operated his Jacksonville Marble Works until 1902 when he was persuaded to move to Ashland.

Did you know that Jacksonville once boasted a movie theater?  On November 21, 1929, “Outlawed,” starring cowboy Tom Mix and his horse Tony, opened Felton Franks’ new “movie house.”  Located in the Kubli building at 115 W. California, it boasted a stage, a sloping floor, “attractive decorations,” and a seating capacity of 150.  Franks promised shows 4 times a week, continuous performances from 7 to 11pm, and 3 complete weekly changes of program featuring “the very best of the big silent pictures” from Paramount, Universal, and FBO. 

However, Franks’ timing was off, following so closely on the heels of the stock market crash of 1929 which ushered in the Great Depression.  The movie house lasted into the early 1930s, but closed for lack of audience.  Even though movies were a popular escape from the Depression, Jacksonville’s population had fallen to under 700 and many were “on the dole,” i.e., welfare.

From 1893 to 1915, the Jacksonville-to-Medford 5-mile spur Rogue River Valley Railroad was a “family affair.” In 1893, William S. Barnum leased the railroad from the RRV Railway Company, running the trains with the help of his 2 sons. His 14-year-old younger son, John Barnum, became the youngest train conductor in the nation! In the 1890s, you might have seen John, resplendent in his uniform, standing at the Jacksonville train depot at the Corner of N. Oregon and “C” streets. In 1899, William Barnum bought the railroad for about $12,000. Nine years later he added a gasoline motor car and 3 freight cars. In 1915, the family sold the RRVRR to the Southern Oregon Traction Company for $125,000—part cash, part mortgage.

The Rogue River Valley Railway’s first engine—Engine No. 1—was put into service in May of 1891 to haul gravel, bricks, timber, crops, livestock, mail and passengers over the 5-mile, single track spur line that connected Jacksonville with Medford. Nicknamed Dinky, the Peanut Roaster, the Tea Kettle, and the Jacksonville Cannon Ball because of its small size, Engine No. 1 soon proved too underpowered to haul the heavier freight loads up the 3% grade from Medford and was relegated to passenger service, pulling a single Pullman car. In 1895, the little 12-ton Porter engine was sold. It changed hands a number of times over the years until it was badly burned in a logging camp fire. In 1946, Helen O’Connor spotted the abandoned engine in Cottage Grove, OR, and bought it for her husband Chadwell, a steam engine enthusiast, inventor, and a Sci-Tech award and Oscar recipient from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The couple had Engine No. 1 rebuilt from the original Porter blueprints. Over the next 6 decades, the little engine saw new life as a private plaything, a Cottage Grove tourist promotion, transportation for families wanting to cut their own Christmas trees, and a “prop” in commercials and motion pictures until Mel and Brooke Ashland arranged for its purchase and restoration in 2014. Engine No. 1 now sits on original track on the Bigham Knoll Campus at the end of East E Street in Jacksonville.

The small brick building at 166 E. California Street, tucked between the Jacksonville Inn and the U.S. Hotel, originally housed the H. Judge and Nunan Saddlery and Harness Shop. Constructed in 1874 following the disastrous fire that had wiped out the entire block the previous year, the building replaced Horne’s Hall, a 2-story building with rooms and offices below and “a steel sprung floor on the second floor expressly made for dancing.” One year later, Henry Judge, one of the town’s first trustees, broke his partnership with Nunan. Jeremiah Nunan continued to operate the business but by the early 1880s was dealing in general merchandise rather than saddles and harnesses.

Did you know that for many years, 155 North 3rd Street in Jacksonville was the site of law offices?  By 1856, Paine Page Prim, Supreme Judge and ex-officio Circuit Judge of Jackson County’s 1st Judicial District, hung out his shingle here.  Prim subsequently was elected to the Oregon Supreme Court and served on it for 21 years including 3 terms as Chief Justice.

In 1862, Joseph Gaston, lawyer and editor of the “Sentinel” took over the space.  After leaving Jacksonville, he was a pioneer in Oregon’s railroad building efforts and for many years editor of the “Portland Oregonian.”

Prominent local lawyer Charles Wesley Kahler acquired the property in 1874, but it was 1877 before he and his partner, Edward B. Watson, moved their offices to the site.  Watson also served as Jackson County Clerk prior to being elected in 1880 to the Oregon Supreme Court, becoming its 12th Chief Justice. 

In 1886, Kahler erected the current brick building, replacing what was by then one of Jacksonville’s vintage wooden structures.  Kahler was a long-term resident of Jacksonville, arriving with his parents at age 11.  He became a prominent lawyer and District Attorney.  He was fondly recalled as “a complete gentleman, always cordial and gracious.” 

Adjoining Jacksonville’s Red Men’s Hall at the southwest corner of California and 3rd streets, and probably constructed by brick mason George Holt at the same time in 1884, is the almost identical Kaspar Kubli Building.  The ground floor rear housed Kubli’s tin shop while the front was occupied by Jeremiah Nunan’s Farmers and Miners Supplies through the turn of the century. The site had originally hosted the first court ever convened in Jacksonville.

Did you know that James Beard, “America’s first foodie,” the leading U.S. culinary figure during his lifetime, and “The Dean of American Cuisine,” once dined in Jacksonville?  And no, it was not at the Jacksonville Inn or one of the town’s other popular restaurants we’re familiar with today.  This was during the 1960s and the “restaurant” was actually a small diner built around a circus wagon.  It stood at the corner of California and 3rd streets where the replica of Beekman’s Express Office now houses Umi Sushi.

Called the Kottage Kitchen, it was owned and operated by Clifford and Mary Cowan.  “Aunt Mary” was known for her good food, and the Kottage Kitchen was “the place to eat,” frequented by the likes of the sheriff and the mayor.  Of course, it may also have been about the only “restaurant” in town….

James Beard dined there as the guest of Robbie Collins, the individual who was the key “mover and shaker” in preserving and restoring the town’s historic buildings and establishing Jacksonville’s “National Historic Landmark District.”  Beard “loved” the Kottage Kitchen’s food and gave it a positive review, putting it “on the map.”  [Collins later confided that Beard was quite drunk at the time.]

After Clifford died, Collins bought the corner lot and let Mary keep on cooking.  When the Health Department showed up one day, intent on closing the Kottage Kitchen, Collins pleaded for one more year and then Mary could retire.  The Health Department relented, and Mary operated her diner for another 12 months.  When she retired, the entire town held a parade to honor “Mary Sunshine”!

From the mid-1850s until at least 1907, it was the site of the Union Livery Stable.  Horses, saddles, wagons, buggies, and tack could be rented as needed, and drivers could be provided.  Carriages for residents were stored there and horses stabled. 

In 1911, the Union was replaced by the Bailey Livery Stable.  Before long, however, “horseless carriages” replaced horses and a Mobil gas station replaced the old livery stable.  It operated at this corner for a number of years, but by the 1950s there were FOUR gas stations in Jacksonville!  The Mobil station went out of business, and for a short time the building was occupied by a barber shop.  However, there were still 3 gas stations in town.  We’re not sure how many people had cars, but with lots of folks not having washing machines, what was needed was a laundromat.  Enter the Wash and Dry washateria.  It lasted until about 1970.  In 1972, the Jackson County Federal Savings & Loan took over the site, erecting a new building.  Founded in 1909, JCF S&L became part of Key Bank in 1993, which was subsequently acquired by Umpqua in 2014.  Whew!

Did you know that the Magnolia Hotel at 245 North 5th Street in Jacksonville was built in the early 1900s as the Rogue River Sanitarium?  At the time, that meant health spa. Such sanitariums were part of the “Wellville” movement pioneered by the Kellogg brothers. This approach to medicine advocated holistic treatments and vegetarianism, and such sanitariums typically focused on nutrition, exercise, and…enemas to cleanse the system. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg also created the “health food,” Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, in hopes that it would reduce what he considered unwelcome sexual impulses.

However, by the time this Spanish Revival style structure was built, Jacksonville had lost its status as the hub of Southern Oregon. The railroad had by-passed the town, and soon the county seat would be moved to Medford. When the great Depression of the 1930s hit, Jacksonville’s population was only 700 and most buildings stood empty.  Jackson County began placing most of its poor in Jacksonville’s empty buildings because property values were some of the lowest in the County and there were plenty of potential caretakers among the people looking for work. The Rogue River Sanitarium was one of these “poor houses,” but it was as much hospital as sanitarium.

In the early 1950s it was purchased by Bessie Mitchell and rechristened the Mitchell Sanitarium.  Bessie was a young widow with several children, two of whom were disabled and needed full-time care.  Her only training had been in nursing, and the sanitarium allowed her to care for her children while securing income to support her family.  According to a daughter, Bessie was an enterprising woman and had negotiated the purchase without a cent in her pocket. The sanitarium became a family operation and what a long-time resident described as a “senior guest house.” 

It was converted into a bed and breakfast inn in 2007.  Current owners envision tapping into some of the building’s earlier “vibe” as a place for healthy activities and retreats—but without the enemas and cornflakes!

For 142 years, a small wooden building stood at the corner of 5th and C streets, kitty-cornered from the Mustard Seed. Built around 1865, it housed the law offices of Orange Jacobs, one of Jacksonville’s most prominent early attorneys and the editor and publisher of The Jacksonville Sentinel. Jacobs moved to Washington sometime in the 1860s, becoming Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Territory of Washington, representing the state for 2 Congressional terms, and serving as Mayor of Seattle. His Jacksonville office was subsequently occupied by prominent attorney C.W. Kahler and by E.B. Watson, who became Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. By 2007, the structure was too dilapidated to repair and became a victim of “demolition by neglect.”

The 2-story Orth building, located at 150 S. Oregon Street in Jacksonville, was erected in 1872 by German born butcher, John Orth. Prior to the building’s construction, Orth’s butcher shop had occupied a wooden frame building on the same site, sharing the block with the Palmetto Bowling Saloon, the Beard House and Eagle Brewery (later the Old City Brewery), and “an old hospital building.” When Orth razed the older buildings to make way for his new edifice, the Democratic Times newspaper noted that the site had been “devoted to almost every purpose except printing a newspaper and serving God.” The Democratic Times rectified one omission, taking office space in Orth’s new brick building.

Did you know that Jacksonville’s northeast corner of California and 4th streets housed businesses serving local transportation needs for over 110 years? Most residents associate the location with Rasmussen’s Super Serve. Established by Ernest Rasmussen in 1950 as a combination gas station and car repair shop, the gas station portion closed long ago, but Ernest’s grandson Steve still operated the popular local repair service until 2022. However, that corner has an even older history of servicing local transportation.

David Cronemiller, a native of Pennsylvania, arrived in Jacksonville in the early 1860s, and opened a blacksmith shop on that site in competition with the successful Patrick Donegan smithy diagonally across California Street. Business must have been booming since Cronemiller’s original smithy was soon replaced by a large, well-equipped blacksmith and wagon shop. He was described as “an excellent mechanic,” “always kept busy by satisfied patrons.”

Donegan had closed shop by the late 1800s but Cronemiller continued to operate successfully until 1904 when his health began to fail. Cronemiller died in 1910, mourned by many for both his “honest and upright” nature and “his gentle forbearing ways.”

Cronemiller’s smithy and wagon shop were torn down in 1929.

The Rogue River Valley Railway, which operated from 1891 until 1925, was Jacksonville’s attempt to maintain regional economic supremacy after the main Oregon & California/Southern Pacific railroad line by-passed the town in favor of the flat valley floor. The RRVR hauled gravel, bricks, timber, crops, livestock, mail and passengers over a 5-mile, single track spur line that connected Jacksonville with Medford. The Jacksonville Visitor’s Center at the corner of Oregon and C streets was constructed in 1891 as the depot for the Railway. The depot originally faced Oregon Street and a small railway switching yard occupied the present-day entrance to the post office parking lot. Today, the building serves as Jacksonville’s Visitors’ Information Center.

Gold Rush Jacksonville purportedly had as many as 36 saloons opened by “entrepreneurs” following the “eruption of miners” who rushed to the Rogue Valley upon the discovery of gold. Initial saloons were simply tents or rough log structures with a liberal supply of whiskey. But by the summer of 1852, the notorious El Dorado was in business, also offering gambling, courtesans, and other enticements. Across the street were the Palmetto Bowling Saloon and the original Eagle Brewery. By 1856 Veit Schutz had erected a huge brewery that also featured a bar and elaborate dance hall. A second Eagle Brewery and Saloon was also in operation along with the New State Billiard and Drinking Saloon. In 1860 Von Helms and Wintjen constructed their brick Table Rock Billiard Saloon, and from 1864 to 1871 the Bella Union Saloon was in operation not to mention all the smaller saloons and the bars in every hotel. So why the proliferation? A perusal of the minutes of the early Jacksonville Board of Trustees revealed that much of their business involved the approval of liquor licenses. It seems that residents were averse to approving any property taxes and that liquor licenses were the sole source of funds for the town into the late 1870s!

The brick building at the corner of California and Oregon streets that houses Scheffel’s Toys is the 6th structure at this location. The site was originally home to Kenny & Appler’s 1852 tent trading post, the first business in Jacksonville. By 1856, their tent had been replaced by a wooden store and then by a brick storehouse. In 1860, merchants Abraham and Newman Fisher acquired this prime corner location for their dry goods and general merchandise store. Fires consumed their stores in both 1868 and 1874. Despite a $28,000 loss in the latter conflagration, the Fisher brothers rebuilt, and the 1874 A. Fisher & Brothers structure still stands today.

The array of businesses at the southeast corner of California and 5th streets were once home to a Shell service station as early as the 1920s owned by R.A. Childers and R. McKee. Although Jacksonville was becoming a backwater, “automobile-ing” was popular and the town even boasted a “car camp” where you could park and sleep overnight. The station was subsequently sold to Otto Heckert, and in 1950, Liz Shrout Legg Pursell and her first husband, Dick Legg, purchased the Shell station. Liz helped run the gas station, doing whatever was needed: picking up and delivering customers’ cars, chasing parts, doing the books, etc. The gas station (and liquor store) became known as the last stop heading out of town. The Leggs closed it when Rasmussen’s gas station opened less than a block away at the southeast corner of California and 4th street. The Leggs divorced. Liz joined the post office and became Jacksonville postmistress before retiring. Always a community activist, she especially focused on creating a Jacksonville Community Center and served as Secretary of its board until the new center opened. Liz passed away on July 9th at age 95. We will miss this longtime Jacksonville “fixture” who has been so much a part of its history.

The Table Rock Billiard Saloon, constructed in 1860, was also Jacksonville’s first museum. Saloonkeeper Herman Von Helms collected fossils and oddities to attract a clientele that then stayed for his lager. For many years the saloon also functioned as an informal social and political headquarters, home to business deals, court decisions, and even trials. Fire gutted the building in 1960, leaving only the façade. The restored structure now houses the Good Bean Coffee House.

Everyone’s necessary accessory, the cell phone, represents a huge leap from the beginning of Jacksonville’s telephone service.  The plaque and display windows on the telephone exchange building at the northwest corner of California and Oregon streets tell only part of the story of the telephone coming to Jacksonville. 

After Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876, demand for this novel invention spread.  Initially, pairs of telephones were connected directly with each other.  In 1888, Jacksonville’s first telephone line connected the U.S. Hotel with the Riddle House in Medford.  However, it appears to have been short-lived due to costs. 

Six years later, a syndicate installed a 2-point, 3-instrument Medford-Jacksonville line connecting the G. H. Haskins drug store in Medford with the county clerk’s office at Jacksonville’s County courthouse and the Reames, White & Co. store.  A 5-minute talk cost 25 cents.  By 1899, a regular telephone exchange serving 10 subscribers was established.  

However, there was no direct dialing.  In fact, there was no dial telephone—do you even remember the dial telephone?  An operator switched connections between lines making it possible for subscribers to call each other at any location on the exchange.  By 1918, service had at least doubled since Carrie Beekman was listed as #22 in the Jacksonville telephone directory.

The original telephone exchange was located in the small brick building at 255 E. California Street, more recently occupied by wine tasting rooms. The current California and Oregon street corner was originally home to David Linn’s furniture factory, showroom, and planing mill.  When it burned in an 1888 arson fire, J.C. Whipp’s marble works took its place.  Around the turn of the century, millwright John Lyden expanded Whipp’s display room into the Lyden House which became a popular boarding house and restaurant.  A 1962 Mail Tribune wrote the Lyden House obituary when it was torn down and replaced by the current telephone exchange building.

The U.S. Hotel, located at the northeast corner of California and 3rd streets in Jacksonville, stands on the site of hotel buildings dating back to 1852. The 1880 U.S. Hotel building looks much as it did when local brick mason George Holt constructed it in the late 1870s for his wife, hotel proprietress Madame Jeanne de Roboam Laugier Guilfoyle Holt. De Roboam, who had established the Franco-American Hotel as a famous regional hostelry, longed for a grand brick hotel. It was even rumored that she married Holt in to fulfill her dream.

Shortly after the hotel was completed, Jacksonville and Madame Holt welcomed President Rutherford B. Hayes and his entourage for an overnight visit with brass band, speeches, and elegant dinner. Madame Holt also presented the presidential party with a bill double that charged by San Francisco’s finest hotel. General William Tecumseh Sherman, a member of the presidential party, complained about the cost, saying they didn’t want to buy the hotel, only to rent rooms. Madame Holt is said to have replied that the President of the United States could afford to pay a little more than common people….

Following his sister’s death in 1884, Jean St. Luc de Roboam, inherited the U.S. Hotel. He and his wife, wealthy widow Henrietta Schmidling, made a number of improvements, including a skating rink.  But with the cost of renovations, DeRoboam soon accumulated unpaid mortgages, the lenders foreclosed, and the hotel went on the sheriff’s auction block. Henrietta saved the hotel by making the highest bid—$4,325 in gold coin from her own inheritance. 

When Henrietta died in 1900, she left Jean St. Luc the furniture from the U.S. Hotel and a life interest in the property. Upon DeRoboam’s death, possession of the hotel was to pass to her son Augustine.  DeRoboam came to the conclusion, however, that he ought to have clear title to the hotel building and sued to set aside the legal proceedings whereby his wife had become possessor of the property.  He lost his case in court, but apparently not in his mind.  When DeRoboam died in 1913, he deeded the hotel to his son Samuel. 

However, neither Samuel DeRoboam nor Augustine Schmidling became beneficiaries.  In 1915, the U.S. Hotel went to Jackson County for unpaid taxes.

As you climb the stairs from Highway 238 to the Lower Britt Gardens in Jacksonville, have you ever wondered about the stone walls and cavern you see on your left? That was the cellar and barrel cave of Veit Schutz Hall, the largest brewery in Jacksonville. Constructed in 1856, it also featured a bar and an elaborate dance hall. A prominent local attorney wrote the following lines in 1874:
“Oh! Dear Walter, I like to recall
The pleasure we had at Veit Schutz hall
The fun that we had I’ll n’er forget
Nor will I ever those days regret….”

Stone mason J.C. Whipp came to Jacksonville from Portland in 1883 to build the foundation for Jackson County’s historic courthouse, including laying its cornerstone. He opened his Jacksonville Marble Works around 1885. They were originally located “just north of town,” but after the 1888 fire destroyed David Linn’s furniture factory, he moved them to the corner of California and Oregon streets.

Whipp was described as “doing the best of work,” and having “no peer in this part of the state.” Whipp may be best known for his many marble monuments in Jacksonville’s pioneer cemetery as well as cemeteries throughout southern Oregon and northern California, but he also built culverts and bridges.

In 1887, he turned the Methodist Episcopal Church 180 degrees to face the new North 5th Street thoroughfare, and in 1893 he created a stone mantelpiece that won a blue ribbon at the Chicago World’s Fair. Whipp operated his Jacksonville Marble Works until 1902 when he was persuaded to move to Ashland.