Orange Jacobs

For 142 years, a small wooden building stood at the corner of 5th and C streets, kitty-cornered from the Mustard Seed. Built around 1865, it housed the law offices of Orange Jacobs, one of Jacksonville’s most prominent early attorneys and the editor and publisher of The Jacksonville Sentinel. Jacobs moved to Washington sometime in the 1860s, becoming Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Territory of Washington, representing the state for 2 Congressional terms, and serving as Mayor of Seattle. His Jacksonville office was subsequently occupied by prominent attorney C.W. Kahler and by E.B. Watson, who became Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. By 2007, the structure was too dilapidated to repair and became a victim of “demolition by neglect.”