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Memorial Day has Historic Jacksonville, Inc. thinking about others who have sacrificed their lives for the public good. Did you know that August Singler was the first Oregon sheriff and the first (and to date only) Jackson County sheriff to be killed in the line of duty? Shortly after being elected sheriff in November 1912, Singler, his wife Rose, and their brood of 8 had moved into the sheriff’s quarters at the corner of East 6th and D streets in Jacksonville behind the 188

In 1896 a group of French settlers arrived in Jacksonville intent on establishing a large-scale grape and wine industry. One of these individuals, Francois Loran, was granted the parcel of land located at 860 Hill Street where he constructed the initial box house that still stands on the site. In 1918, the property was acquired by Auguste Petard, another Frenchman and winemaker. Petard had come to America in the late 1890s to make his fortune mining gold—only to find he was 5

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.

One of the reasons Cornelius Beekman closed his bank in 1912 was the 1907 opening of the Bank of Jacksonville on the ground floor of Red Men’s Hall across California Street at the corner of South 3rd. However, it turns out that the Bank of Jacksonville was not exactly on the “up and up”! In August of 1920, its President, W.H. Johnson, was arrested and indicted on 30 felony counts including misstatement of the bank’s condition, receiving monies in a known insolvent banking in

Did you know that Jacksonville used to have a baseball team? The city block on North 5th Street occupied by the local Ray’s supermarket was Jacksonville’s baseball field in the early 1900s, home to the Jacksonville Gold Bricks baseball team. Team owner, George “Bum” Neuber, constructed it in 1902 to take the place of an older field at “Bybee’s Grove,” a mile out of town. Fans could now enjoy a grandstand along with the hotly contested games, but you had to have a ticket!

In 1887 Thomas Reames joined his California Street neighbor Cornelius Beekman as a co-partner in the C.C. Beekman Bank, creating Beekman & Reames Banking House at the corner of California and North 3rd streets in Jacksonville. In addition to general banking, Beekman & Reames invested heavily in county warrants and large land holdings. The partnership continued until Reames’ death in 1900 from complications from a cold. However, Beekman continued to use the Beekman & Reames im

Regarding the C.C. Beekman Bank, Jacksonville’s original Wells Fargo agency and the oldest financial institution in the Pacific Northwest, one of the questions docents are frequently asked is “Was the bank ever robbed?” It turns out there’s a “yes” and “no” answer! In December 1938, long after the bank had been closed and declared a museum, some guns were stolen. No other losses were reported. However, there was a “yeggman’s plot to rob the Bank in 1913 that was thwarted by t

When Cornelius Beekman opened his express office in at the corner of Californis and S. 3rd streets in 1856, he shared the space with Dr. Charles B. Brooks’ drugstore. The present building on that site is a 2003 faithful reproduction of the original. A 17-year-old Brooks had graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky with a degree in “necrology”; continued his study of medicine in Louisville; and then lured by the promise of the West, joined a wagon train of settlers

Cornelius C. Beekman erected his second bank building in 1863 at the corner of California and North 3rd streets in Jacksonville. Begun as a gold dust office in 1856, Beekman saw over $40 million in gold cross his counters during Jacksonville’s heyday in the 1800s—equivalent to over $1 billion in today’s currency! Beekman’s Bank is the oldest financial institution in the Pacific Northwest and remains furnished exactly as it was when Beekman closed and locked the doors for the