The well alongside C.C. Beekman’s Bank was “rediscovered” in 2004 when California Street was rebuilt.  And while it may have provided drinking water for downtown shops and stock animals according to the interpretive sign, it was a little more self-serving than that. 

Fire was the big hazard in early Jacksonville with fires wiping out major portions of the town during its first 40 years.  Beekman was the one who had both the well dug and the pump installed in 1868 to protect his Express building and other commercial investments.  The “Oregon Sentinel” newspaper tracked his progress.

October 10, 1868: “Mr. C. C. Beekman has commenced to dig a well on the Express corner and has on the way a large force pump, capable of throwing water over the whole block, which he intends placing in it. We are glad to see a little public spirit left among our citizens, as the majority of them seem inclined to take no precautionary measures.”

October 24, 1868: “The new well of Mr. C. C. Beekman on the Express corner is finished. A good supply of water was struck at 27 feet, about ten of which was through the bedrock. Mr. Beekman intends putting one of the new American submerged pumps in it, which in case of fire will be a great protection. Mr. Beekman deserves credit for his public spirit, and we would be glad to see others do likewise.”

December 5, 1868: “The new submerged pump just placed in the well of C. C. Beekman at the Express Corner is a success. It will throw a stream of water across the street to the roof of Horne’s Hotel and can never freeze up.”  The local suppliers of this American Submerged Pump, Hoffman & Klippel, subsequently touted its benefits—” It never freezes, will force water over any building, is invaluable for irrigating, and will not get out of order”—noting that one could be seen in use at the Express corner.

Thanks to Beekman’s foresight and his well and pump, his 1863 Bank/Express office is Jacksonville’s oldest wooden commercial building still standing on California Street despite the town’s many subsequent fires!

Prior to the coming of the telegraph, news was transmitted by mail that was carried by travelers, pony express, and then stages. The news could be weeks, even months, old before it reached Jacksonville.  Even after Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in the 1830s and created the dot-dash-space Morse code to represent letters, numbers, and punctuations, it was May 24, 1844, before the first message was sent between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.— “What hath God wrought?”  It was another 17 years before the first transcontinental telegraph system was completed, and 2 years more before Oregon and Jacksonville were linked to the telegraph. 

Multiple challenges delayed the installation.  The country was in the middle of the Civil War. The ship carrying the wire for the Oregon telegraph was wrecked off the coast; 200 miles of wire was lost and had to be reordered. Ownership of the telegraph rights changed hands.  And once the telegraph reached as far as Yreka, the connecting line to Southern Oregon had to be strung over the Siskiyous. 

Finally, by early December, the telegraph wire stretched within 20 miles of Jacksonville—only to have a major storm demolish 80 miles of the line. It was late January of 1864 before Jacksonville was finally connected by telegraph with Yreka.  On January 22, 1864, the first message between California and Oregon was finally received.

Some years later, Judge William Colvig recalled the difference the telegraph made.  “Before that, news generally was ancient history before it reached us, and it certainly relieved the monotony of pioneer life when news started coming with the swiftness of the lightning’s flash.”

Both John Cantrall and Patrick Fehely, featured in our last 2 History Trivia Tuesdays, mined in Sterlingville, located about 6 miles south of Jacksonville. An entire town sprang up after miners James Sterling and Aaron Davis struck gold in 1854 in nearby Sterling Creek. With the gold miners came boarding houses, saloons, general stores, a casino, a dance hall, a barbershop and blacksmith shop and many houses. Within 2 years Sterlingville was home to over 800 people; at its peak Sterlingville had a population over 1,500. Jacksonville’s South 3rd Street (shown here in front of the Fehely House) connected to the Sterlingville Road.

In 1877, the Sterling Mine Company built the Sterling Ditch, diverting water 23 miles from the Little Applegate River for hydraulic mining. Sterling Mine quickly became the largest hydraulic mine in Oregon. But as the gold diminished, so did the township. After the Great Depression, what little business and population were left slowly faded away and nature eventually reclaimed the buildings. Today, the cemetery is the only remaining sign of Sterlingville’s existence. Patrick Fehely and his wife, Sarah Jane, are both buried there.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to ride in a stagecoach?  An 1865 traveler between Jacksonville and Yreka wrote about the “luxury” of travel in a stagecoach, or “mud wagon,” as they were called.

Picture a covered wagon.  “Inside there are three seats, cushioned with leather cushions, more solid in feeling than the boards beneath, while the floor has several good large cracks, suitable for the free circulation of cold air, and which are highly instrumental in making the feet very uncomfortable. The backs of the seats are strips of cushioned boards, which reach just to that place in one’s back where a little support is ever so agreeable, and yet fails to reach it so universally that the spinal column weakens after a few miles’ riding, and the inclination is to get into a variety of positions, more to be felt than enjoyed. The curtains, devoted to the ‘comfort of passengers,’ have several air holes, or rather ventilation places, through which the wind makes a very sad and deplorable squeak as it squeezes through and pinches the auricular attachments of one’s aching head.

“A ‘stage’ has capacities for carrying freight, mail and passengers, of enormous amplitude. After piling on the small effects of passengers—twelve or fourteen large trunks, six or seven valises and as many blankets, baskets and bundles—the mail is added, sometimes ten or more bags; then express boxes, made of pine wood, but mounted with an iron lock large enough to use on a London penitentiary; then a few boxes ‘going by express.’

“A variety of loading is added, a Mexican saddle and a box of apples; then a ham…then a box of candles, a few pounds of old cheese, a pair of boots, …a small chicken coop and a new shovel for Smith, on the summit; a keg of mackerel, a bottle of old rye, a bag of corn and case of kerosene oil….”

And did we mention that if the wagon gets stuck in the mud, the passengers have to get out and push!

Bob May was not feeling much comfort or joy as the 1938 holiday season approached.  A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward in Chicago, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara.

One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.

In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.

Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune.

Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”

Employees of I.B.M. used to joke that the initials stood for “I’ve Been Moved” since they were relocated so frequently.  Well, in early Jacksonville, it was buildings that were frequently relocated.  Here are three with that distinction. 

When St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1854, the church faced 4th Street. Three years after the new Jackson County Courthouse was completed in 1884 and 5th Street became the main route to Medford, the building was rotated and moved to face the new thoroughfare. 

The “Gwinn House” located at 415 East C Street was purchased from the original builder in September 1859 “for the County Clerk’s office, Sheriff’s office, and jury rooms…and removed to the Court House block” where it stood at the corner of 6th and C streets.  It served those functions for the next 25 years until the County Clerk and Sheriff moved into the new brick courthouse in 1884. Sometime after 1907, the house was moved to its present site.

The Applebaker Barn, located at the corner of North 3rd and D streets, was originally a steam grist mill, built in 1880, and located about 1 mile south on 3rd.  At one time it ranked third in the state in flour production.  In 1915, Joseph Applebaker dismantled, moved, and reconstructed the building at its present location to serve as his blacksmith’s shop.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving has historically been the most heavily traveled day of the year.  Will you be driving over the Siskiyous to visit family or friends in California?  Or looking forward to guests making the trip in reverse?  If so, you or they will be traveling “Oregon’s Main Street.”  Did you know that some version of that route has been followed for thousands of years?  

When Cornelius Beekman rode his 67-mile express route between Jacksonville and Yreka in the 1850s, he followed the Siskiyou Trail blazed by Hudson Bay Company trappers in the 1820s that roughly followed an ancient network of Native American footpaths.  In 1837, an enterprising Californian spent 3 months driving 700 cattle over the trail to sell to British and American settlers in Oregon, widening and establishing the trail in the process.

The 1848 discovery of gold sent Oregonians pouring over the pass in search of riches; the 1851 discovery of gold in Southern Oregon reversed the migration.  By the 1850s the “population explosion” demanded a real road.  In 1859, a toll road, the Siskiyou Mountain Wagon Road, the first “engineered” road over the Siskiyous opened.  A little excavation was done, a few culverts put in, but the route varied only slightly from that of the Trail. 

The toll road continued to operate until 1915, when the Pacific Highway, a “national auto trail,” was constructed over essentially the same route.  It was straighter and wider, but it was still a dirt road.  A “Get Out of the Mud” campaign in the 1920s turned it into a paved surface.  In 1945, the Oregon Highway Commission designated the Pacific Highway the “official inter-regional north-south route through Oregon.”  The federal government designated it U.S. Highway 99.

When the old highway was replaced by I-5 in 1967, bits and pieces of the Siskiyou Road were incorporated into the Interstate.  So the next time you cross the Siskiyous, appreciate your ease of travel and give a salute to “Oregon’s Main Street”!

Law and order in early Jacksonville might best be described as “catch as catch can.”  In this case, it appears the murderer was not caught.  The “Jacksonville Sentinel” reported a shooting that took place on January 18, 1857.  About 2pm, A.J. Driskell, a local miner, was crossing South Oregon from the Brunner & Bros. store to the Table Rock Bakery, when he stopped midway to talk to a Mr. Denby.  R.L. Williams stepped out of the shadows, told Denby to “get out of the way,” and fired a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot at Driskell.  Five of the balls passed through Driskell’s intestines.  Driskell turned, ran a few paces and fell, but then got up, drew his revolver and started firing at Williams as Williams ran for cover behind the Maury & Davis store (site of Old City Hall).

Williams prepared to fire again but, finding that Driskell had sought refuge back in the Brunner store, ran instead to the nearby livery stable where he had a horse already saddled.  Williams was chased as far as the Applegate where his pursuers gave up.  No further effort was made to capture him.  Driskell died 5 days later, but not before Justice Hoffman took a formal affidavit in which Driskell implicated Williams and several other men “as being connected with a band of horse thieves” operating between California and the Dalles.  What previous interaction Driskell and Williams had is unknown.  Not exactly a “shoot out at the O.K. Corral,” but perhaps an indication of how effective law enforcement was when gold and gains were foremost in most people’s minds.

This photo of a stagecoach arriving in Jacksonville is dated 1851. Whoa, Nellie! In 1851, Jacksonville didn’t exist. It wasn’t until gold was discovered the winter of 1851-52 that Table Rock City (later renamed Jacksonville) became a mining camp. Which also means there was no photographer around to take the picture. Not to mention there were no roads for stagecoaches to travel. The Siskiyou Trail mountain crossing was a rough and difficult passage best made on foot or horseback. Few wagons tried it, and only in summer months. Regularly scheduled local stage runs began in the early-to-mid 1850s and the stops were Ashland, Jacksonville, and Rock Point. They traveled what we know as “Old Stage Road.” Stage service to Jacksonville from Yreka first began in the summer of 1854. But it wasn’t until August 1859 that the Siskiyou Mountain Wagon Road, the first “engineered” road over the Siskiyous, opened. It was a toll road, owned and operated by Lindsay Applegate of Applegate Trail fame for the next 10 years. We think it’s safe to surmise that, while this may be a photograph of a stagecoach arriving in Jacksonville, it was not in 1851!”

Since 2024 is a Leap Year, Historic Jacksonville, Inc. is wondering—does the “Ladies’ Law” still hold?  According to tradition (which can be traced to 1288 and Margaret Queen of Scots), during a Leap Year a lady has the privilege of suggesting marriage between herself and a bachelor acquaintance. In the event of the gentleman’s refusal, he was expected to present the lady with some compensation, a more common one being a new black silk dress. We did find an 1885 newspaper quip with a niece asking her aunt why she had so many black silk dresses!

We don’t know how many Jacksonville ladies may have taken advantage of the role reversal tradition, but we do know that in February 1884, the “Oregon Sentinel” reported that local ladies held a “Leap Year’s party at Madame Holt’s Hall.”  Prominent Jacksonville family names appear on the dance committee lists: Orth, Prim, Helms, Plymale, Linn, Hanley, Ulrich, Klippel, and Cameron among others. For the evening at least, the ladies adopted the following resolutions:

·   Every lady is expected to act like a perfect gentleman.

·   No gentleman will dance unless asked by a lady.

·   No gentleman will walk across the floor unless leaning upon the arm of a lady.

·   Any lady insulting a gentleman will be put out of the hall at once, and all gentlemen will be protected from rudeness while in the hall.

·   Gentlemen will dance on the right side of a lady as a matter of course.

·   Any ungentlemanly behavior on the part of a lady will be promptly checked by the floor committee.

·   Any gentleman showing a lady attention shall be warned once and put out twice.

·   Any gentleman asked by a lady to dance can excuse himself by fibbing about his engagement if he chooses, and all will be well.

We have not had a chance to check the local newspapers for any subsequent marriages, but we do suspect that a good time was had by all!

Have you ever noticed the hops plants growing on the field at Bigham Knoll at the east end of E Street?  The German-speaking immigrants who contributed so much to early Jacksonville culture also brought with them their recipes for German lager with its pronounced flavors of malt and hops.  Joseph Wetterer and Veit Shutz were 2 of the most prominent early brewers.  
 

Initially, these early brewmeisters probably grew their own hops, a flowering vine trained to grow on tall strings strung between posts. Really tall strings. So tall, in fact, that before the advent of hop harvesting machinery, farm workers had to use stilts to tend the plants. Harvesting hops was so labor intensive before mechanical harvesters were invented that entire families of migrant farm workers took part in the harvesting process, taking advantage of the plentiful work and employment opportunities.

You may be familiar with how the discovery of gold during the winter of 1851-52 led to the founding of Jacksonville.  Within a few months the area was dotted with the tents of 3,000+ miners seeking the promise of treasure. 

However, you may be less familiar with Jacksonville’s second gold rush.  As an alternative to putting residents on the “dole” during the 1930s, the County gave out mining permits, allowing residents to dig for any residual gold lingering from the 1850s.  Some got lucky, but most latter-day miners only found enough gold to live from day to day.  Still $2 a day was more than most jobs paid—assuming you could find one. 

Most mining shafts were dug in backyards, but some residents had sufficient moxie to burrow under the town’s commercial buildings.  According to 1935 newspaper accounts, 4th Street had several dips in it; on Main Street, “the bottom fell away from light poles, leaving them suspended by the wires on the cross arms.”  The shaft pictured here is in what is now the parking lot behind Jacksonville’s post office and Visitors Center, the old Rogue River Valley Railroad station.    

Almost every inch of Jacksonville was “undermined.”  The result is periodic “sink holes” opening over old mine shafts around town.  In just the past few years we’ve had sink holes opening behind the Jacksonville Inn, in the post office/Visitors Center parking lot, and in Ray’s Market’s parking lot—all remnants of what individuals might do for what one journalist described as a “ham-and-eggs” existence.

Since a new Jacksonville Museum is much in the news today, Historic Jacksonville, Inc. thought we would remind residents that a museum was a Jacksonville institution for 150 years from 1860 to 2010!  Residents fondly recall visiting the last Jacksonville Museum and visitors regularly ask the Visitor Information Center’s staff, “Where’s the museum?”

The town’s first museum was housed in the Table Rock Billiard Saloon, constructed in 1860 at 165 S. Oregon Street. Saloonkeeper Herman Von Helms collected fossils and oddities to attract a clientele that then stayed for his lager.  When the saloon closed in 1914, the Helms’ “Cabinet of Curiosities” boasted a collection of artifacts valued at $50,000.  It encompassed “every possible manner of relic…mutely telling pages in the early history of Jackson County.”  Highlights included the first piece of gold found in Jacksonville, a photo and piece of rope from a hanging, and the first billiard table in the Oregon Territory. 

Subsequent museums were housed in the Brunner Building, the Bella Union Saloon, the U.S. Hotel, and what is now Jacksonville’s New City Hall.  The current Jacksonville Museum proposal would include all of these sites, recognizing that the town itself is a museum—one easily accessed virtually today through apps that will allow visitors to explore specific themes or create their own tours with information about the buildings, the people, and their stories.  Old City Hall, the oldest government building in Oregon that remained in continuous use, would be the starting point for sharing Jacksonville and its National Historic Landmark District with the public.

Of all the Jacksonville, Oregon “firsts,” the question of who first found gold may be the most debatable.  The “Gold First Found Here” marker on Applegate Street where it crosses Daisy Creek would have you believe that James Clugage and James Pool, two packers carrying goods to the mining camps in California, did a little panning in the creek in the winter of 1851-52 and found the first “color.” 

But the story is a little more complex than the marker would have you believe.  Several gold discoveries had been made in the Illinois Valley at Josephine and Canyon creeks and Sailor’s Diggings in 1851 before the first Rogue River Indian War broke out. 

And the previous fall, the son of Alonzo Skinner, the local Indian agent, and one of his employees, a Mr. Sykes, had found gold in nearby Jackson Creek.  Clugage and Pool learned of their discovery when they spent a night at the Skinner homestead.  So, before heading to Yreka, Clugage and Pool took time to pan a little and, voila! 

Clugage and Pool hightailed it south and immediately filed land claims on what is now most of Jacksonville.  They returned and spent the next few weeks mining, but then Clugage did something unheard of—he publicized his “find,” even boasting to California newspapers of taking out 70 ounces of gold a day from his claim. Thousands of miners poured over the Siskiyous into the Valley, closely followed by merchants, gamblers, courtesans, and settlers—all needing a mining, business, or home site. 

In the case of Jacksonville’s gold discovery, the honor of “first” probably belongs to Skinner and Sykes.  But Clugage may have found the mother lode—he made a fortune selling land! 

Fire was a significant hazard in early Jacksonville with major fires destroying portions of the town in 1867, 1873, 1874, and 1884, and 1888. The town’s volunteer fire department, Engine Company #1, responded to the call of the Applebaker Fire Hall bell well into the 1950s. Today, Engine Company #1 provides back up services to the town’s professional fire fighters, and the Applebaker Fire Hall, attached to Old City Hall on South Oregon Street, houses an historical fire museum.

With major fires destroying portions of early Jacksonville, Oregon, fire, or more accurately “fire insurance” was the impetus for most of the brick construction that now comprises the town’s historic commercial district. The City Fathers did not mandate brick commercial buildings until 1878. However, very early on, insurance companies penalized owners of wooden structures—and buildings adjacent to wooden structures!

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 Railway’s first steam engine, Engine # 1—fondly called the “Tea Kettle” and the “Peanut Roaster”—proved underpowered to haul heavier freight loads up the 3% grade from Medford. It was soon replaced by larger engines like the one shown. Engine #1 was relegated to passenger service, pulling a single Pullman car. In 2014, Mel and Brooke Ashland arranged for the purchase and restoration of Engine #1. It now sits on original track on the Bigham Knoll Campus at the end of East E Street.

We know that Jacksonville is a special place, a fact that has been recognized for a long time.  As early as 1877, the publisher of Portland’s “West Shore” magazine described Jacksonville and the Valley as THE EDEN OF OREGON.  He wrote: During a visit to Southern Oregon, on the 15th of July we observed in the gardens of Peter Britt, at Jacksonville, some magnificent fig trees. They were in full bearing, and the fruit was just turning ripe, whilst the second crop was commencing to form. A very excellent article of grapes also grows in this county, and at Mr. Britt’s place we tasted a one-year-old claret of his own growth and manufacture; and we very much doubt if it can be surpassed in the much boasted-of California vineyards. All the grain and fruits known to the tropics grow here to perfection. Extend the Oregon & California Railroad to Jackson County, and she is capable of supporting the entire present population of Oregon.

Flags and flagpoles have always been an important way of expressing political opinions and “freedom of speech”—perhaps even more so in the 19th Century than now. Historic Jacksonville has previously shared the story of Zany Ganung, who in 1861 returned home to Jacksonville from tending a sick patient only to find that someone had erected a flagpole flying the Confederate “palmetto and rattleshake flag” across the street from her front door. Without a word to anyone, Zany entered her California Street house, returned with a hatchet, crossed the street, chopped the pole down, and used the flag to stoke her stove. However, Zany had a precedent. In 1855, when town women protested their men folk leaving them unprotected during the Indian Wars, local “wags” ridiculed them by hoisting a petticoat at half mast on the post office flagpole. The women were greatly incensed but had no means of getting the petticoat down. Dr. Charles B. Brooks, a local physician, saved the day for the feminine part of the population by hauling it down, thus allowing the women to march off in triumph.

In 1853, Prospector John W. Hillman of Table Rock City (Jacksonville) was reportedly the first American of European descent to see Crater Lake—and he nearly fell into it. While with a party of miners seeking the storied “Lost Cabin Gold Mine,” Hillman was riding a mule along a high ridge when the animal lurched to a stop and would not budge. Hillman looked down and saw that the beast had come right to the rim of a huge crater with a brilliant blue lake at its bottom. “Not until my mule stopped within a few feet of the rim of Crater Lake did I look down,” he later wrote, “and if I had been riding a blind mule I firmly believe I would have ridden over the edge to death and destruction.”

But with no luck in their quest and provisions exhausted, Hillman and his fellow miners returned to Table Rock City. Although they debated whether to call their find Deep Blue Lake or Mysterious Lake, a lake was of only passing interest when gold was the objective. Deep Blue Lake was forgotten until it was discovered by another party 9 years later.

Did you know that when Jacksonville’s current Library was built with funds from a 2000 bond issue, construction workers discovered a large tunnel that ran under Highway 238 and into the lower Britt Gardens?

It seems that undermining Jacksonville may have been a common practice long before the Great Depression of the 1930s.  According to A.C. Van Gelder, an old-time miner and prospector, Chinese miners dug an extensive tunnel under much of Jacksonville in the late 1800s.  In 1968, Van Gelder considered opening the “Chinese Tunnel” as a tourist attraction since it ran under much of his property.

The tunnel began near the bridge west of Jacksonville on what is now Highway 238, passed under the old train depot (now the Visitors Center), ran across Oregon on the south side of C Street, and followed the “rim” of C Street almost to 4th, ending under the community center (now the Jacksonville Inn parking lot). 

The Chinese miners had dug down 12 feet to bedrock to create the tunnel.  They had also used timbers to shore up the “drift” so the tunnel would not cave in, apparently an unusual practice for them.  In 1968, the tunnel had caved in only one place since its excavation—at the southeast corner of C and North Oregon streets. 

This is most likely the same tunnel under Highway 238 that was discovered when the current Jacksonville Library was built.  It could be Chinese, since it originates in an area adjacent to what was Jacksonville’s Chinatown.  But it’s equally likely that it dates from the Depression Era since one would think that 19thCentury Jacksonville residents would have been aware of any Chinese miners digging a tunnel under their properties.

For years, 2 huge Catalpa trees with their large heart-shaped leaves and popcorn-like clusters of flowers were prominent features in the yard of Jacksonville’s historic 1873 Beekman House Museum. These quick-growing trees were popular plantings in pioneer settlements throughout the West. 

Also known as the Indian bean tree, the Catalpa was valued for its medicinal uses.  Tea brewed from its bark was used as an antiseptic to treat snake bites and whooping cough.  A light sedative could be made from the flowers and seed pods, and the flowers were used for treating asthma.  The leaves could also be turned into a poultice for treating wounds. 

However, the leaves may have served an even more valued purpose.  Prior to the days of indoor plumbing, the large, soft Catalpa leaves may have been a welcome alternative to the Sears Roebuck catalog…. 

You can appreciate the remaining 100-year-old Catalpa tree whenever you visit the Beekman House Museum – although public restrooms have now replaced the 2-seater outhouse which you can still see in the backyard!  For information on Historic Jacksonville’s Beekman House tours, visit www.historicjacksonville.org.