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Aaron Maegly arrived in Jacksonville sometime after 1880 where he became the chief clerk in prominent merchant Gustav Karewski’s hardware store. By 1884 he was a partner in Bilger and Maegly, one of the 3 largest local manufacturers of agricultural machinery and implements, a competitor to Karewski. Two years later Maegly had established his own business, A.H. Maegly and Company, dealing in stoves, tinware, hardware, and agricultural implements. In 1885 Maegly married Cecelia

As you stroll up East Main Street to the Britt Festival grounds, at 230 South 1st Street—the corner of 1st and Main—you pass the Abraham Fisher House with its large sequoias and monkey puzzle tree. Fisher constructed the central portion of the house around 1860, although the lot was not deeded to him until 1866. Fisher had arrived in Jacksonville around 1853. Joined by his brother Newman, the mercantile firm of A. Fisher and Brother was one of the earliest advertisers in J

The B.F. Dowell house at 475 N. 5th Street is one of the earliest Italianate style homes built in Oregon. Constructed in 1861, it may also have been the first home in Jacksonville to be built of brick. Most homes of the period had wood burning stoves for heat, but this distinctive home has 4 fireplaces—one of black onyx and 3 of marble. The marble probably came from Dowell’s own marble quarry on Williams Creek. That same marble was also used for the porch steps and all the wi

The Italianate style home at 475 N. 5th Street was built for Benjamin Franklin Dowell, named for his grandmother’s uncle, Benjamin Franklin. Dowell served as prosecuting attorney for Oregon’s 1st Judicial District and as U.S. District Attorney. For 14 years he owned the Oregon Sentinel newspaper, the first newspaper in the Pacific Northwest to support the abolition of slavery and the first to nominate Ulysses S. Grant for president.

Discrepancies over property ownership were common in early Jacksonville, and between 1859 and 1863, seven different “owners” claimed rights to the small saltbox house property located at 375 East California Street. Cornelius C. Beekman “purchased” the property in 1861. When James Cluggage was granted official donation land claim rights to the property in 1863, he deeded them over to Beekman. Cornelius Beekman probably occupied the property from the time of his 1861 marriage t

In July 1870, Cornelius C. Beekman purchased 3 lots at what is now the corner of Jacksonville’s East California and Laurelwood streets and commissioned this modest Carpenter Gothic style home for his family. Beekman was the most prominent and probably the wealthiest man in Jacksonville. From a humble beginning as an express rider carrying mail, packages, and gold over the Siskiyous to Yreka, Beekman built a business empire of banking, insurance, mining, and real estate intere

Successful Jacksonville tin merchant and civic leader, John Bilger, built this home at 540 Blackstone Alley in 1863, 2 years after he married fellow German Amanda Scheck. After Bilger’s partner, John Love, died of tuberculosis in 1867, Bilger expanded into hardware. When Bilger died in the 1877 cholera epidemic, Amanda continued to operate the business to support their 8 children. The Bilger House is one of Jacksonville’s few early brick residential structures and the only on

Have you ever wondered about the stone foundation you see in the lower Britt Gardens as you head up to the festival grounds? It’s a 1976 reconstruction of the footprint of Peter Britt’s home that burned in 1960. As pioneer photographer Peter Britt’s enterprises expanded over the years, his Jacksonville home on Britt hill became a reflection of his growing prosperity. When Britt arrived in Jacksonville in 1852, he staked a donation land claim on the area that now encompasses

Have you ever noticed the 2-story Carpenter Gothic style farmhouse at 3995 South Stage Road just past Dancin Vineyards? In the late 1800s, this was home to Emil DeRoboam and his family. DeRoboam was the nephew of U.S. Hotel proprietress Madame Jeanne DeRoboam Holt and prominent in his own right. After immigrating from France to the United States in 1871 with his widowed father, Jean St. Luc DeRoboam, Emil became a wagon and carriage maker in Jacksonville. The Democratic Tim

160 E. California Street in Jacksonville, now home to Pico’s Worldwide, was once the site of Lewis and Zany Ganung’s residence. The Ganungs had traveled west from Ohio, arriving in Jacksonville in 1854. Lewis Ganung was a doctor, and Zany frequently acted as his nurse. On June 11, 1861, so the story goes, Zany returned home tired and exhausted after spending the past 24 hours with a very sick patient. Overnight, someone had erected a flagpole flying the Confederate “palmetto

Like a number of other Jacksonville buildings, the 1 ½ story house at 340 N. Oregon Street was moved from its original location—the corner of California and 5th streets. By 1866, Dr. E.H. Greenman had acquired the property at the California intersection and constructed a small rectangular building. Regular advertisements in local newspapers soon promoted Dr. Greenman’s services. In 1869, Greenman sold the property to Dr. Will Jackson, for many years the local dentist. It’s un

T he house at 410 S. 3rd Street in Jacksonville was built between 1862 and 1864 for William M. Griffen, the eldest son of Burrell and Sally Griffen. The one-story portion of the house with its mortise and tenon floor joints would have housed William, his wife Mary Ann, and at least five of their 13 children—two of whom were born there in 1864 and 1866. William arrived in the Rogue Valley from Kentucky in 1852 with his parents who took out a donation land claim in the area of

In 1881, Gustav Karewski, one of Jacksonville’s most successful merchants and businessmen, built the 2 almost identical 1 ½ story houses at 305 and 325 North 6th Street as rental properties. Local newspapers took note of Karewski’s willingness to speculate on real estate. After booming years of gold mining, agriculture, and trade activity, by the 1880s, Jacksonville’s future was uncertain. Every such sign of confidence in the town was noted by the press and lauded as indicati

Hattie Reames White House at 640 E. California Street in Jacksonville is not white. White was the married name of Hattie Reames, the oldest daughter of General Thomas Reames. Although folklore says the house was built in 1892 as a wedding gift for Hattie and John F. White, the house appears to have been built before 1890. A previous residence on this site may have been occupied by Hattie’s parents prior to moving to or constructing their home at 540 E. California. White was a

The Italianate style Helms House at the corner of South Oregon and Pine streets in Jacksonville was built in 1878 by Table Rock Billiard Saloon owner Herman von Helms (although the “von” was probably his own addition to imply descent from royalty). An existing cabin was incorporated as kitchen and pantry. After arriving in Jacksonville in 1856, Helms had purchased an interest in the Table Rock Bakery (the forerunner of his saloon), and in 1866 purchased this corner lot from W

Plans for the Queen Anne style DeRoboam home at 390 E. California Street in Jacksonville did not come from the same George Barber catalog of house plans that inspired the Nunan House, but its style and features indicate that its design did come from an architectural pattern book. Constructed in 1893 for Henrietta Schmidling DeRoboam, it’s one of the few houses in town with a “jerkin head” roof—a combination of gable and hip roofs. Schmidling, a rich Prussian widow, had marri

In 1868, Henry Klippel and James Poole (one of Jacksonville’s founders) platted a subdivision in the eastern part of the town which became know as the Poole and Klippel addition. At about the same time, Klippel constructed this 1 ½ story home at 220 North 8th Street. A native of Germany, Klippel became a prominent figure in Southern Oregon, best know for his successful mining activity and his involvement in state politics.e residence.

In 1876, John Herberger was deeded almost the entire block on which the house at 415 W. Oak now stands at the corner of Oak and 1st streets. He had probably arrived in Jacksonville only shortly before he purchased the property. Born in Austria in 1839, Herberger was a carpenter by trade so very likely constructed his home around 1877, providing his future family a lovely view of town and valley. Sometime after 1880 he married. He and his wife, Belle Elizabeth, had one survi

Because the history of the house at 250 N. Oregon Street in Jacksonville is one of change, adaptation, and alteration, we identified the wrong house on 2/7/17 as the home of Dr. G.W. Greer! Here’s the correct image and info: Dr. G.W. Greer, a prominent early physician, had arrived in town by 1856. Originally from Missouri, Greer was a Benton County representative to the Oregon Territorial Council of 1854. Soon after coming to Jacksonville, he married his second wife, Irene Lu

Dr. Will Jackson was 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. His house at 235 E. California Street was his second home at that location, constructed in 1873 after a fire took