The building we know today as the Jacksonville Inn was originally P.J. Ryan’s storehouse.

The building itself was originally P.J. Ryan’s storehouse. Irish immigrant Patrick Ryan was early Jacksonville’s most prolific builder of “fire-proof” brick commercial buildings. In 1861 he constructed a 1-story brick mercantile store at 175 E. California, variously occupied by Judge’s Saddlery, H. Bloom, and “M. Menzer Gen’l Mdse.” Ryan himself occupied the building when it burned in the April 1873 fire. He suffered one of that fire’s heaviest losses—the building itself plus $30,000 in merchandise.

Within a year, Ryan was erecting a 2-story brick mercantile warehouse on the previous foundation. Months later, the building “continued heavenward” with a 3rd story wooden “pent house,” (later removed), making it the tallest building in Oregon. The Oregon Sentinel proclaimed it to be “as fine a building of the kind as there is in any town this size in the state.”  Ryan’s store was on the ground floor and his living quarters on the second floor.  Who occupied the “penthouse” is unknown.

 Over the next century, the building was occupied by a mercantile, the post office, a flour and feed store, and other entities until, like many of Jacksonville’s commercial structures, it became derelict after the railroad bypassed Jacksonville and the county seat was moved to Medford. 

In the 1960s, Mayor Jack Bates purchased the building as part of Jacksonville’s celebrated revival which created the town’s National Historic Landmark District.  In 1976, Jerry Evans and his wife, Linda, purchased the Jacksonville Inn. Jerry dedicated the next 45 years of his life to keeping the renowned inn and restaurant up and running.  But in 2021, at age 85, he decided to move on to other pursuits.

According to the current owners press release, the restaurant is currently up for lease, but the Inn and wine shop will continue in operation.  Let’s hope that there will be new owners who reopen the restaurant and that the tradition of Jacksonville Inn hospitality continues into the foreseeable future!

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By 1856, their tent had been replaced by a wooden store and then by a brick storehouse.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!

Farmhouse Treasures at 120 West California Street is located on one of the few spots in Jacksonville that was used continuously for medical related purposes for almost 140 years. G.W. Greer, “physician and surgeon,” operated an office at this site as early as 1855. By 1862, Dr. L.S. Thompson had joined Greer in dispensing drugs and medicines. In 1868, Sutton and Stearns were carrying “everything usually found in a first class drug store.” Three years later Robert Kahler owned the City Drug Store. Kahler had the current 1-story brick building constructed in 1880, shortly after taking Dr. J.W. Robinson (shown here) into partnership. As late as the 1980s it was an osteopath’s office.

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.

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.