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Did you know that Jacksonville boasted the first financial institution in the Pacific Northwest? Of course, it didn’t look like much. It was just a large safe! Cornelius Beekman had come to Jacksonville in 1853 as an “express” rider for Cram Rogers & Co., carrying the mail, newspapers, parcels, gold, and even passengers 2 to 3 times a week roundtrip between Jacksonville and Yreka. Express was the early version of postal service, UPS and Fed Ex. When Cram Rogers went belly

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

The oldest part of the Bella Union Restaurant and Saloon at 170 W. California Street was constructed in 1874 by pioneer woodworker and builder David Linn after the fire of 1874 destroyed many of the original buildings in Jacksonville. Linn had purchased the lot in 1856 and erected a one-story brick building to house his woodworking shop. After Linn relocated his business to the corner of California and Oregon, he rented the space to a series of tenants, including Prussian nat

The Bella Union Restaurant and Saloon at 170 W. California Street is not one building, but three. The old brick portion, constructed in 1874, replaced an earlier building that housed the original Bella Union Saloon. The middle portion and main entry is straight out of Hollywood. It was built in 1970 when Jacksonville became the movie set for The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid starring Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger and Robert Duvall as Jesse James. The film is based on the

Did you know that Ben Johnson Mountain in the Applegate is named for a Black pioneer? Historically, Southern Oregon has had only a small population of Black residents so it’s remarkable that a local mountain landmark is named for a Black man! In fact, when Ben Johnson lived near Ruch in the 1860s, the state’s “exclusion laws” made it technically illegal for a Black to reside in Oregon. Johnson had been born into slavery in Alabama in 1834. In 1853, he had crossed the plains

The Rogue River Valley Railway, which operated from 1891 until 1925, was Jacksonville’s attempt to maintain regional economic supremacy after the main Oregon & California/Southern Pacific railroad line by-passed the town in favor of the flat valley floor. The RRVR hauled gravel, bricks, timber, crops, livestock, mail and passengers over a 5-mile, single track spur line that connected Jacksonville with Medford. The Railway’s first steam engine, Engine # 1—fondly called the “Te

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. The is one of the earliest Italianate style

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

The building that is now the Blue Door Garden Store at 130 West California Street in Jacksonville was built around 1862 by German-born John Neuber to house his jewelry store. Neuber was Jacksonville’s first goldsmith and silversmith. He specialized in solid gold buckles for women’s belts. While running to fight one of the periodic fires that broke out in the town’s early wooden structures, Neuber incurred severe head injuries. In 1874 he was declared insane by the Jackson Cou