The southern portion of the house at 560 North Oregon Street is believed to have been Jacksonville’s first schoolhouse, but this was not its original site. Constructed in 1856, records show it was located on the opposite side of North Oregon and about ¼ mile farther north. The house was deeded to Robert Dunlap in payment of $137 he was owed “for improvements – digging well, making fences, walks, etc. – about the new school house” that had been constructed on Bigham Knoll in 1868. Dunlap, best known as the cemetery sexton, moved the old schoolhouse to this lot where it became his home.
Most know that the Jacksonville’s 1891 Visitors Center building was originally the depot for the Rogue River Valley Railway. The small spur rail line was the town’s attempt to maintain regional prominence after the Oregon and California Railroad bypassed Jacksonville in the 1880s in favor of the flat valley floor. But it was too little too late. The railway ceased operation in 1924 and the depot was abandoned. In the 1960s, the depot became the headquarters of the Jacksonville Boosters Club. Although the building remained on the same site, it was rotated 90 degrees so that it faced the new post office building rather than Oregon Street.
The central portion of the lovely home at 465 East C Street known as the “Carriage House,” was originally a barn constructed in the 1880s, probably by Max Muller. The next owner of the property built the right portion of the house as a carriage house around 1908. When George and Doris Brewer purchased the property in the 1960s, they jacked up the old barn, put it on skids, and pulled it to a cement foundation. They then moved the carriage house from its original location, turned it 180 degrees, and attached it to the barn. The current structure was finished with materials salvaged from historic properties throughout the Valley.