The Walkabout Wednesday Club – Gracie
Meet Gracie, an 8-year old Red Tri-color Australian Shepherd who was rescued from a shelter 2 years ago.
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Dr. Will Jackson Home
Gracie is quite inquisitive, so she is checking out the home of Dr. Will Jackson, a popular Jacksonville dentist from the late 1860s to the late 1880s. Actually, he was probably the only Jacksonville dentist during that period. Although he pulled teeth and supplied “nice natural looking teeth…for those wanting,” he is also believed to have been the first dentist in the Valley to use fillings as an alternative to extraction.
A colleague remembered him as “quite a large man, with black hair…who wore that determined look that made the small boy in need of his services feel that he was not to be trifled with.”
Jackson’s house at 235 E. California Street was his second home at that location, constructed in 1873 after a fire took out most of the block. It’s now home to the Miners Bazaar. Jackson’s dentist office was “12 feet east” where Remotion’s tasting room now stands.
The entire corner of California and 5th streets was originally the site of the corral and stables of Cram & Rogers, the company that brought C.C. Beekman to Jacksonville, but from 1857 on, that corner housed a succession of doctors’ offices.
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McCully House Inn
Gracie is visiting the McCully House Inn, originally the 1861 home of John and Jane McCully. John had been Jacksonville’s first doctor and the town’s first Justic of the Peace. But when the McCullys arrived in Jacksonville in early 1852, there was no demand for a doctor. Instead, John speculated in real estate. In 1856 he erected Jacksonville’s first 2-story brick commercial building, the most expensive structure in town at the time.
After being elected to the last Territorial Legislature and the first State Legislature, John built this elegant home at 240 E. California Street to symbolize his status and prominence.
John’s speculation had significantly over-extended him financially, and the house bankrupted him. To avoid his creditors, he left town in early 1862, leaving his wife Jane with 3 children plus his debts. He also left her with this elegant home at 240 E. California Street. To survive, Jane turned to baking bread and pies—the source of the family’s income when they first arrived in Jacksonville. She leased the house to a couple who ran it as a boarding house, and in June of 1862 Jane opened “Mrs. McCully’s Seminary” in the family’s old log cabin, the town’s first school for girls.
Jane was a trained teacher, and her seminary was so popular that by the end of the year she took over the house for classes. Even after public schools opened, Jane provided advanced education for both girls and boys. She was the only teacher the children of many of Jacksonville’s prominent families ever knew. And everyone was taught never to mention John McCully’s name in her presence!