Last Wednesday was the fifteenth anniversary of the driving of the last spike on the railroad connecting Portland and San Francisco. On the 17th day of December, 1887, the result for which people of Southern Oregon and Northern California had been hoping and praying for over twenty years had been accomplished, and the principal cities of both states were at last linked together by bands of steel. Many were the vicissitudes attending the building of this road. In the latter part of the '60s Ben Holladay--the man who started the first stage line from St. Joe, Mo., across the plains and who originated the famous "Pony Express" [Holladay acquired the Pony Express after its demise, but didn't found it]--commenced the construction of the Oregon & California R'y. from Portland south toward the California line. About the same time the California & Oregon R.R. commenced building northward through California. The country was new, its resources undeveloped and after various trials the roads stopped--the Oregon road at Roseburg and the California end at Redding. Until 1881 the situation remained in status quo, and the old Concord coach, drawn by its team of six fine horses, rocked on the brink of precipices, slowly climbed the steep mountainside or dashed madly down toward the valleys along the 320 miles of rough and dangerous road between Roseburg and Redding. In 1881 work was commenced on the extension of the O.&C. road from Roseburg south and finally came to a halt against the rugged sides of the Siskiyou Mountains above Ashland, when Henry Villard, who had built the Northern Pacific and was back of the O.&C. extension, lost his fortune in the whirl of Wall Street. Again there was a long period of inaction. The O. and C. road became in railroad parlance nothing but "two streaks of rust and the right of way." Finally the Southern Pacific Co. acquired title to the Oregon road under a ninety-nine years' lease, and immediately the extension of the California end of the road was commenced. The Siskiyous, against whose rockbound sides the Villard millions had been hurled in vain, were pierced with tunnels, ravines were bridged, outstanding points cut in two, and finally on that memorable day in December, fifteen years ago, the dream of Ben Holladay, when he set his first stagecoach on its long journey across the plains, was realized, and from Maine to Florida, from Florida to the Columbia River stretched continuous bands of shining steel, bearing the commerce and progress of the world ever westward as the star of empire leads the way. Fifteen years ago Dan Cawley drove the last coach of the overland stage line across the Siskiyous and as he rolled up his whip and tossed the reins to the hostler at the end of that drive a new era commenced and an old one passed away. The old landmarks--here where Black Bart, the poet highwayman, held up his last stage; there where a stageload of theatrical folks went off the grade; yonder where a wheel ran off and precipitated a load of passengers over a bluff--are hardly decipherable any more and, in many cases, are forgotten; but here and there throughout Southern Oregon live white-haired old men, who in years gone by held with firm hands the reins over those six bounding steeds and guided the rocking coach around the perilous curves and along the frowning precipices which lined the route of the overland stage line.
    Thus forever ended in Southern Oregon the
Medford Mail Tribune, December 19, 1902, page 2


    From a chaparral patch, where in early days the aboriginal residents hunted the succulent jackrabbit or the wary quail, has been evolved the city of Medford.
"Progress of Half a Century," Medford Mail, August 11, 1905, page 1


    Major Cardwell:--"Do I see any changes in the valley since I left? A few, yes, quite a few. For instance twenty-five years ago, when I departed from Jacksonville, nobody had any idea that there would ever be any other town in the valley except Jacksonville. The site upon which Medford is built was known to we youngsters as "jackrabbit flat" on account of the number of the long-eared animals that lived among the chaparral patches. I come back now and find a flourishing city on that same flat. I see orchards growing on land which in early days we didn't think amounted to much. Even old  Jacksonville has changed, not only in age, but in appearance. Those magnificent trees on the streets of the old town were mere switches when I left; new buildings have been erected and old landmarks have been swept away. There are also vacancies in the ranks of the pioneers. Many of them whom I remember have crossed to the other side. Still there are a good many of them left--a little more aged than when I left here perhaps, but still the same in spirit; jovial, hospitable and generous."
Except, "Street Echoes," Medford Mail, November 3, 1905, page 1


    I didn't realize what I had, though, until I came back here last week and took a look over the valley. Many a place where I traveled through muddy fields and thickets of chaparral answering professional calls in those days are now covered with thrifty orchards.
Dr. E. P. Geary, "Street Echoes," Medford Mail, June 29, 1906, page 1


    So soon as [J. S. Howard's store] was enclosed and the floor laid Mr. Howard's friends, residing in the nearby settlements, decided to dedicate with an impromptu dance the first building in the embryo town of Medford, then merely surveyor's stakes set on a broad expanse of sandy bottom that gently sloped toward Bear Creek and was covered with a scattering growth of oak and pine interspersed with thickets of chaparral and manzanita.
Rogue River Fruit Grower, January 1909


    The vacant space for so many years occupied by the depot has a queer look without it. It makes the oldtimers rub their eyes and talk of the time when the townsite was only chaparral and a camping ground, with ducks swimming around where now the finest business blocks and residences are piercing the skies.
Medford Sun, December 21, 1910, page 2