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The first Jackson County Courthouse erected on Jacksonville’s Courthouse Square on North 5th Street was a 2-story clapboard structure dedicated March 6, 1859, by the Warren Lodge No. 10 of Free and Accepted Masons as a Masonic Hall. Shortly afterwards, the Masons leased the first floor to the County for court use. For 6 years previously, court proceedings had been held in various town structures including the New State Hotel and the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1867, the Ma

Within 12 years of its erection in 1859, the first Jackson County Courthouse on North 5th Street in Jacksonville was being called “dilapidated” and “a disgrace to the county,” and in 1880 a grand jury condemned it. It still took another 3 years for the County Commissioners to take action, draw up plans and select a builder. Prodded by Judge Silas Day, the Commissioners determined that they wanted a 2-story brick structure, 92 x 60 feet, with 14 foot ceilings. The cornerstone

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

Even before it was completed, the historic Jackson County Courthouse, located on Jacksonville’s North 5th Street Courthouse Square, was being called one of the “most prominent buildings in Jacksonville” and “very ornamental.” Upon completion, it was declared “the crowning glory of Jacksonville.” However, this “crowning glory” was almost “too little, too late” after the railroad by-passed Jacksonville in favor of the flatter Valley floor. Even a spur line connecting Jacksonvil

Three previous jails stood on the site of the historic Jackson County Jail located at 216 North 5th Street in Jacksonville. In 1875, a sturdy brick jail replaced a simple wooden structure built in the 1850s. When the new jail burned in 1889, it was replaced with a larger building boasting a concrete floor and corrugated iron ceiling. By 1910 it was deemed old and inadequate and was torn down to make way for the current structure. Completed in 1911, the existing jail was built

One of our trivia fans asked about the Jackson County Jail pictured in “The Last Hanging in Jacksonville.” The jail shown, constructed in 1875, was the second jail on Courthouse Square. It was described as a sturdy brick building reinforced with “4,000 pounds of iron spikes for strength.” Seven inch thick wooden planks lined the masonry walls and separated the cells. The building burned to the ground in 1889 on a night when the sheriff had chosen to “sleep” at the U.S. Hotel

Today we’re also asking for your help with a history mystery! We’re trying to locate Emil DeRoboam’s Jackson County Poor Farm. We recently told you how Emil DeRoboam was the farm’s superintendent. He apparently took over from his aunt, Madame Jeanne DeRoboam Holt, proprietress of the U.S. Hotel. She had obtained the contract for the county “poor hospital” in 1880, housing the indigent for $1.49 a day in a building she rented adjacent to her Franco-American Hotel, the current

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

Did you know that Jacksonville has had a barber shop since the 1850s? The shop itself has moved around a bit for most of the time it has stayed in its current vicinity, moving between 135, 145, 155, and 157 W. California Street and the ground floor of the 1870s Masonic Hall. One of the longest serving barbers, and the first town barber “with training,” was George Schumpf. In 1873 he purchased Blackwell’s barbershop lodged in the notorious El Dorado Saloon. The saloon stood

The banks of Jackson Creek across from Mary Ann Drive and Reservoir Road are the site of The Jacksonville Brick & Tile Co., one of the biggest brick kilns in Southern Oregon. Incorporated in 1908 by German immigrant Peter Ensele and his sons, the brickyard could burn 200,000 bricks every 6 weeks. The steep banks of nearby Jackson Creek had previously been the site of a major gold strike. When the gold played out, the rich clay supplied the bricks for major projects in Jackson