Blog

Before the Sisters of the Holy Name opened St. Mary’s Academy in 1865 in what is now Beekman Square, they briefly operated St. Joseph’s School for Boys in this building at 310 North 5th Street. They obtained the deed in 1864, the same year they had been brought to Jacksonville by Rev. Francis Xavier Blanchet, who for many years served as the parish priest of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. The school was short lived, before being replaced by St. Mary’s. This structure, known as

May is teacher appreciation month, but it’s questionable whether teachers were truly appreciated in the late 1800s—or at least whether female teachers were. Teaching was one of the few acceptable occupations that single, middle-class females in need of some income could pursue—and then only until they married. The work was hard and the standards high. Most schools of the time were 1-room and teachers were expected to instill reading, writing, math, history, and geography i

The oldest section of the house located at 560 North Oregon Street in Jacksonville has been described as the town’s first schoolhouse. But then it may NOT have been! In diaries and memoirs, Reverend Fletcher Royal tells of renting a house in 1853 from Col. John Ross for $15 a month to “have room for a school and church purposes.” Winter and spring classes were conducted there. In the spring of 1854, Royal bought another house from a Thomas Pyle for $250. In the front room

At the end of E Street in Jacksonville lies Bigham Knoll, the original 7-acre campus that was once home to Jackson County School District #1. In 1867, when the County’s first public school was deemed inadequate, the school district directors acquired this property and converted an existing two room house into a school building until local builders could erect a new 2-story frame and “weather boarded” schoolhouse. Students paid $5 per quarter in tuition until 1875, when the s

When Jacksonville’s 36-year-old wooden school house on Bigham Knoll burned in January 1903, within a month the School Board made plans to raise a new fire proof brick building. S. Snook, contractor “for so many of the new school buildings of the better class in Oregon,” erected the new 5-room brick structure. However, the best laid plans…. Four years later this “fire proof” brick structure was totally destroyed by fire on December 13, 1906. Even though the building was no

Historic Jacksonville, Inc. is revisiting some of the structures that have served as school buildings for the town’s youth over the years. When a December 1906 fire razed the 3rd school to stand on Bigham Knoll, Jacksonville voters immediately approved another school bond issue. The new fireproof brick building, completed in 1908, was acclaimed one of the best appointed schoolhouses in the state with 6 classrooms, a large assembly room with a large stage fitted with electric

The cul-de-sac off E. California Street in Jacksonville now known as Beekman Square was originally the site of St. Mary’s School. Established in 1865 by three members of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, it operated as a 12-year boarding and day school for the daughters of the more well-to-do pioneer families. It graduated its first student in 1871. St. Mary’s moved to Medford in 1908 and became co-educational in the late 1920s. It’s currently serves middle and