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Gold Rush Jacksonville purportedly had as many as 36 saloons opened by “entrepreneurs” following the “eruption of miners” who rushed to the Rogue Valley upon the discovery of gold. Initial saloons were simply tents or rough log structures with a liberal supply of whiskey. But by the summer of 1852, the notorious El Dorado was in business, also offering gambling, courtesans, and other enticements. Across the street were the Palmetto Bowling Saloon and the original Eagle Brewer

Melissa Taylor had the Queen Anne style cottage located at 255 South 5th Street in Jacksonville built around 1910 after the death of her husband, Sam. Samuel Taylor came across the Oregon Trail in 1851 and moved to Jacksonville the following spring after the discovery of gold. He mined off and on for the next 30 years, spending 2 years as Superintendent of the Steam Boat placer mine. In the late 1850s, Sam served 2 terms as Deputy Sheriff of Jackson County. He is also said to

Did you know that Sarah Ish was one of the richest women in the Rogue Valley? The Ish family plot is the most photographed plot in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery. Sarah’s husband, Jacob Ish, son of a Virginia plantation owner, had come west in 1861 to escape the Civil War. He purchased 320 acres about three miles from Jacksonville and started a ranch, now the site of Ish Ranch Estates off West McAndrews. When opportunity arose, Ish added to his holdings. He eventually bec

The corner of California and Oregon streets where Scheffel’s Toys is located is the oldest known business site in Jacksonville. Early in 1852, soon after news of the gold discovery in Jacksonville spread to California, Kenny and Appler, two packers from Yreka, established the first trading post on this site. They stocked it with a few tools, clothing, boots, “black strap” tobacco, and a liberal supply of whiskey, essential items for an infant gold mining camp.

The brick building at the corner of California and Oregon streets that houses Scheffel’s Toys is the 6th structure at this location. The site was originally home to Kenny & Appler’s 1852 tent trading post, the first business in Jacksonville. By 1856, their tent had been replaced by a wooden store and then by a brick storehouse. In 1860, merchants Abraham and Newman Fisher acquired this prime corner location for their dry goods and general merchandise store. Fires consumed the

The 1874 Jacksonville brick building at the corner of California and Oregon streets that houses Scheffel’s Toys is historically known as the Fisher Brothers Store, but one of its longest tenants was the Marble Corner Saloon also known as the Marble Arch Saloon. The saloon occupied the building from around 1890 to 1934. The saloon was presumably named after the Jacksonville Marble Works which relocated to the corner directly across North Oregon after the fire of 1888…or becaus

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