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The Infamous Black Bird Southern Oregon History, Revised


Capsule Histories

The first three entries below are short histories of Medford I wrote or edited in 2010 for a walking tour brochure, historic markers and a video. The fourth is a speech I delivered February 24th of that year to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Medford's incorporation.
   

They're followed by other histories of Jackson County.



The walking tour brochure:

Explore Southern Oregon History In Medford
    Medford, Oregon was established in 1883 when the Oregon and California (O&C) Railroad, a forerunner of the Southern Pacific, surveyed the most direct—and most economical—route through the Bear Creek Valley for their new railroad. To satisfy the need for a central depot in the valley, the O&C’s choice to locate it here was influenced by an offer from the site’s major landowners, Iradell Phipps and Charles Broback, of 20 acres of their land, as well as every other block of the “new town on the valley floor.”
    The town was named Medford by David Loring, the railroad’s right-of-way agent. Casting about for inspiration and not noting any landmarks suitable for a name, he took the site’s location in the middle of the valley and combined it with the nearby McAndrews Ford, a half-mile north of town. The final form of the name was inspired by a city near Loring’s home town of Concord, Massachusetts: Medford. The town narrowly escaped being named “Grand Central” or “Phippstown.” When the first train pulled into Medford in January of 1884, wooden stores lined Front Street facing the tracks and ran down Seventh Street (today’s Main) to today’s Riverside, the county road that connected Medford to the surrounding towns. The depot, which was originally built in the middle of Main just west of the tracks, would not be completed for another month.
    Incorporated in 1885, Medford prospered and its population grew, surpassing Jacksonville before 1900. Merchants replaced wood buildings with fine brick ones, and fancy homes were built near the commercial district. Medford’s first professional architect was W. J. Bennet, who spent a productive 18 months in Medford in the middle 1890s; the early 1900s saw the arrival of J. A. MacIntosh and then Frank Chamberlain Clark, who designed and remodeled many of the city’s most important structures over the next 50 years.
    With the completion of the railroad, the Rogue Valley immediately found a regional market for its livestock and grain. As those crops were supplanted by more profitable fruit, those markets became national and even international. A very few orchards even realized the astounding income of $1000 an acre, which fact, spread by overzealous promoters, attracted an influx of investors, many from eastern cities.  “Orchard tracts” were sold and resold to these wealthy “colonists,” inflating real estate prices to astronomical levels. Newcomers swelled Medford’s population by almost 400% between 1900 and 1910, making it the second fastest growing city in the U.S. The “Orchard Boom” brought new building and remodeling as Medford’s prospering downtown modernized. Phones and electric lines appeared, and Medford built its first publicly owned City Hall in 1908. By 1910 Medford’s population was 8,800, surpassing Ashland and making it the largest city in Southern Oregon.
    Medford quickly adopted the automobile and not only boasted more than 18 miles of improved road by 1912, for a time it held the distinction of having the highest auto-to-population ratio in the world. Jackson County was the first county in Oregon to offer a paved route from end to end; soon Oregon would be the first state west of the Mississippi able to make such a claim.
    One extraordinary year near the end of the Orchard Boom, 1911, saw the construction of the Hotel Medford, Hotel Holland, Roosevelt and Jackson schools, Sacred Heart Hospital, the Carnegie Library, the Medford Furniture & Hardware Co. building (Woolworth’s), the Cuthbert building at Sixth and Central and more. Construction of at least ten multi-story brick and masonry buildings in one year in a town of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants exemplifies the exuberance of the boom.
    The Orchard Boom ended, as all booms do. The bust was apparent by 1913, the inevitable result of marketing all the valley’s land based on profits possible on only those few acres with the best soil and management. Despite record crops, the slide was triggered by instabilities in fruit markets and a tightening of capital. By 1920, Medford’s population had plummeted by almost 35%.
    During the 1920s the city enjoyed renewed growth as its citizens struggled to pay for the infrastructure built during the boom years. By 1927 Medford could throw a Jubilee of Visions Realized, celebrating its 31 miles of pipeline to a source of pure water, its city airport (the first municipal airport in the state) and its new status as the Jackson County seat. Medford was prosperous again when the stock market crash of 1929 virtually halted all development other than the façade “improvement” programs of the New Deal, which offered federal stimulus funds to strip Medford’s historic buildings of their old-fashioned “gingerbread” and cover them with a layer of streamlined stucco.
    Like much of the nation, Medford was slowly inching its way out of the Depression when huge government investments during World War II brought prosperity. Camp White, a U.S. Army training facility north of the city, brought 10,000 construction workers and over 40,000 military personnel. After the war, Camp White was closed, its hospital converted to a veterans domiciliary, and remaining camp infrastructure taken over by Southern Oregon’s growing lumber industry. The postwar housing boom created a huge demand for lumber and a growing economy and population, and Medford cemented its position as the primary financial, medical and professional service center for all of Southern Oregon.
    By the early 1960s, downtown Medford no longer focused on the railroad and was bypassed by Interstate 5; competition from other shopping areas increased. No longer Medford’s primary shopping district, downtown remains a hub of specialty retailers emphasizing personal service and quality products, fine restaurants, and a performing arts center. Recognition of downtown’s significant role in Medford’s history led to a district nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.




The Vogel Plaza markers:


A Town Is Born

    Destined to become the region’s largest city and a major economic hub, Medford began in 1883 when the railroad came to Southern Oregon. In the fall of 1883, four property owners deeded part of their land to the Oregon and California Railroad for a depot and surrounding town. Before the year was over the unbroken prairie had been surveyed and a town site platted. Houses and commercial buildings rose as quickly as the short supply of lumber and brick allowed, and by early spring two hotels, a few saloons, a livery stable, and a dozen businesses already dotted the muddy streets of this rapidly growing railroad town. By mid-1884, a business district clustered on Front Street facing the depot and spread down 7th Street, known today as Main. Families settled into their newly built homes, women planted flowers in their gardens, and the fledgling town quickly became a community.
During that first year several babies were born, a fatal shoot-out took place, the first of many churches organized, a schoolhouse was built, and trains began shuttling freight and passengers to Portland. As if to say “we have arrived,” Medford’s citizens brashly hosted a Fourth of July gala for the whole Rogue Valley.
    Medford incorporated in 1885. As the small town grew into a city, the board of trustees tackled the challenges of providing water and sewer systems, electric streetlights, and police and fire protection. With its central location and railroad connections to national and world markets, young Medford attracted forward-thinking individuals from other parts of the country. They swiftly joined local entrepreneurs in shaping the city’s future as it eagerly embraced the modern world of the 20th century.
   

Medford Boomed As Orchards Bloomed
    With railroad access to distant markets, the orchard industry flourished. Hundreds of thousands of apple and pear trees were planted in the early 1900s, and commercial fruit became the Rogue Valley's major export.
    Promoters widely advertised the Rogue Valley as an agricultural Mecca, and Medford became one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. By 1910, there was such a housing shortage that a tent city grew up on the edge of town.
Medford’s burgeoning population and an infusion of capital from wealthy easterners transformed the modest town into a sophisticated metropolis. Between 1909 and 1911, many of Medford’s most impressive buildings, including Sacred Heart Hospital on the city’s developing east side, were erected. By 1912, Medford supported a high school, three elementary schools, a city park, a new passenger depot, and a Carnegie library. A roller-skating rink, indoor swimming pool, several movie theaters, and an opera house provided entertainment. Over 21 miles of wooden pipe brought mountain water to the city. Residents had electricity and telephone service. Hundreds of automobiles rumbled over 18 miles of paved streets. Fruit warehouses and packing sheds were built near the train yard, and Medford became the shipping and commercial center of the county. The economy was strong, Medford’s four banks prospered, and life was good until the Orchard Boom went bust.
    Inflated real estate prices and lack of water helped burst the orchard bubble. [I should have written "lack of irrigation." The story that drought killed the Orchard Boom is a myth.] Many novice orchardists took heavy losses, gave up their dreams and left. By the mid-teens, Medford’s population sharply declined as a local recession engulfed the area. Down but not out, the resourceful community maintained a progressive spirit and rescued its shattered economy.
    Despite the economic setbacks that came with the end of the Orchard Boom, Medfordites found ways to move ahead. Slow and steady growth revived Medford’s economy, and in 1927 the community celebrated its recovery with a “Jubilee of Visions Realized.” By then several irrigation districts provided water which, along with the formation of cooperatives, helped stabilize the orchard industry. In 1922 a fairgrounds with five exhibition buildings and tracks for auto, motorcycle, and horse racing opened on Medford’s south side. A dirt landing strip inside the racetrack was part of the first public airport in Oregon. In 1926, this airport became the first and only airmail stop in Oregon, ranking Medford as an early commercial aviation leader. The next year, Medford became the county seat, making it a governmental as well as an economic and transportation center.
    Medford slid into the Great Depression along with the rest of the country in the 1930s. Unemployment rose, renewed growth halted, and one of its four banks failed. During this desperate time, a heated political revolt resulted in stolen ballots from the new county courthouse and a constable’s murder. Yet Medford kept its face to the future. In 1930, the city dedicated a new state-of-the art airport designed for larger passenger aircraft, and beginning in 1936 building owners used “New Deal” money to modernize. As smooth stucco and tile covered outmoded brick and stone ornamentation, progressive Medford enthusiastically adopted the streamline architectural style of the era.
   

The War Brings Change
    When the nation entered World War II, Medford transformed into a military town. Construction of Camp White, a nearby Army training post, began about six weeks after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The Army also took over the city airport, and Medford buzzed with wartime activity.
    As construction began on Camp White, around 10,000 workers, followed by nearly 40,000 soldiers, flooded the area, bringing prosperity back to the city.
Increased demand for lumber during and after the war sparked a boom for Medford’s timber industry. With railroad access and several expanding mills, the city became the regional focus for wood products processing and shipping. From the 1940s until the mid-’70s, timber production drove Medford’s economy and became a way of life for many residents. Following earlier patterns of boom and bust, economic and environmental issues in the 1970s and ’80s eventually ended Medford’s timber reign.
    As the lumber industry lagged, the health industry grew. The construction of two major hospitals, Rogue Valley Memorial in 1958 and Providence in 1966, set Medford well on its way to becoming the major regional medical center that it is today.
    New neighborhoods built to meet the growing demand for post-war housing expanded Medford’s boundaries. Over the next several decades, shopping malls and suburban living pulled day-to-day activity away from the city center.
Today, support from the Medford Urban Renewal Agency, in cooperation with business and property owners, is rejuvenating the downtown historic district, now on the National Register of Historic Places. Restoration projects, infrastructure improvements, and community events are helping to build a downtown Medford grounded in its forward-looking and diverse past.




The video:

    Standing at the center of downtown Medford, it would be easy to assume that the growth of this Southern Oregon city was inevitable--that all it really took was a beginning and Medford would just build itself. The Medford of today is here because of the vision and sacrifice of its citizens, who saw opportunities or made opportunities, and worked to make them real. The survival and development of Medford is an evolving testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of its citizens.
    So how did Medford begin? What happened to transform this empty brush-covered spot in the middle of nowhere into the thriving metropolitan center of Southern Oregon? It starts with an ancient trail . . .
    Medford sits in the middle of the Bear Creek Valley, astride an ancient north-south trade route. The Siskiyou Trail that cut across the territory of the native valley people, the Takelma, was already thousands of years old when Peter Skene Ogden’s party became the first Europeans to follow it in search of furs in 1826.
    The trail was used again in 1846 when the Applegate party set out from the Willamette Valley to blaze what they hoped would be a shorter and safer final leg of the Oregon Trail. The controversial new Southern Route later became known as the Applegate Trail. Today, Riverside Avenue follows its route through downtown Medford.
    In 1851 gold was discovered in Jackson Creek, and Jacksonville was founded by a rush of miners. The Southern Oregon gold rush lasted only a few years, after which the Bear Creek Valley settled down to a quiet existence as an out-of-the-way agricultural and mining area.
    This quiet ended in 1883 when the Oregon and California Railroad began surveying a route, closely paralleling the ancient trade route, south from Roseburg to the Siskiyou Pass. Running the rails through Jacksonville, up against the hills, was out of the question, so the railroad company was faced with the problem of where to locate a central freight depot for the valley.  Central Point was the logical place, being closest to Jacksonville. The railroad’s right-of-way agent, David Loring, asked Central Point to donate land for a station and rail yard.
But the farmers of Central Point were reluctant to give the Oregon & California Railroad the incentives and inducements--what they called back then the "bonus"--that the railroad needed to help pay for the expensive proposition of laying track through the valley.
    But at the site of what would become Medford lived two farmers, Iradell Phipps and Charles Broback. They had the vision to see the opportunity the depot problem offered, and they acted upon it. Along with C.C Beekman and Conrad Mingus they approached the railroad with a proposition: the four would give the railroad 20 acres for their depot and yards, and if O&C railroad would survey a townsite they’d give the railroad every other block to sell. It was deal that the company couldn't pass up. The sale of their building lots made the four founders wealthy men, helped finance construction of the railroad, and began the first of Medford’s many booms. Before the year was over the unbroken prairie had been surveyed by Charles J. Howard, and construction of business buildings began even before the town plat was recorded on Dec 20. The depot was built in the middle of Seventh Street—what today we call Main Street--and a small town grew up around it.
    The railroad’s right-of-way agent, a man named David Loring, had the job of naming the depot. There weren't any landmarks at this anonymous spot, but it was in the middle of the valley, and a half-mile out of town there was a ford, where McAndrews Road now crosses Bear Creek. Loring took the form of the name from a city he knew near his home town of Concord, Massachusetts: Medford.
    The tracks reached Medford in early January of 1884, and passenger service began February 24. By spring two hotels, a few saloons, livery stables and a dozen stores and businesses dotted the muddy streets. During that first year several babies were born, a fatal shoot-out took place, the first of many churches organized, a schoolhouse was built, and trains began shuttling freight and passengers to Portland.
    Most of Medford’s early stores were wood frame structures, like the Railroad Exchange Saloon, though John Byers and Abraham Jacobs had enough confidence in the boomtown to build two buildings of brick. This confidence soon defined the town, and Medford hosted the entire valley--ten times Medford’s 200 residents showed up--for its 1884 Fourth of July celebration. 

The railroad gave Medford its start, but it was the business pioneers who brought industry and developed the town. What convinced these forward-thinking entrepreneurs to take a chance on Medford?   
    Young Medford‘s central location made it the place to be if you were a doctor or lawyer, and its railroad connection made it the place to be if you were shipping the valley’s products to the outside world. Medford attracted professionals, businessmen and entrepreneurial individuals from other parts of the country.
    But when George Horatio Chick came to the Rogue Valley in 1885 to build a gold ore smelter, he didn't have to build it on Fir Street in Medford. But no other town would offer him the bonus he asked for. Medford investors did, and Medford got the smelter. Chick turned out to be a bit of con artist and got little gold out of the ore he milled, but while the investors lost their shirts Medford profited by gaining a reputation as a forward-looking town.
    And when Ansel Davis came to the valley with the ambition to build a flour mill, he came to Medford. Medford gave him incentives, and this is where he built his mill, at the corner of Ninth and Front. When William Barnum came to the valley to build a planing mill, he came to Medford too. Medford residents raised a bonus, and he built his mill over by Bear Creek.
    Medford had incorporated in 1885, and as the town grew, town leaders tackled the problems of turning prairie into a city, juggling the challenges of simultaneously building streets and water and sewer systems, while providing police and fire protection. Soon its residents demanded electric power, and the city government found a way to do that, too.
    Medford’s businessmen allied into a Commercial Club, the predecessor of today’s Chamber of Commerce. The club’s boosters spread the gospel of Medford and the Rogue River Valley far and wide, placing informational ads in national magazines and advertising Orchard Land for Sale in metropolitan newspapers. In the first decade of the century visions of a life as a gentleman farmer amongst the orchards of the valley attracted investors from Chicago and other parts of the country. They brought money that turned the town into the valley’s metropolis, fueling what would later be called the Orchard Boom.
    The Bear Creek Valley's potential as a fruit-growing region had long been recognized, but it was the railroad's more efficient transportation that made commercial orchards viable.
     Joseph H. Stewart arrived in the valley in February 1885 and purchased what is now known as the Gordon Voorhies ranch just south of the city. He planted the farm to fruit and brought commercial orcharding to the valley. He wasn’t the first to plant an orchard, and he wasn’t the first to ship fruit, but before Stewart arrived, farmers planted orchards of mixed varieties, and sold their produce to middlemen. Five years after Stewart’s arrival he was the first to ship a carload of his own fruit to out-of-state markets. He was the man who introduced scientific horticulture and efficient marketing to Rogue Valley orchardry. By 1893 Stewart had 100 acres planted to apples and pears.
    By 1897 Bear Creek Orchard, now owned by Stewart’s son-in-law, Arthur Weeks and his brothers, had 15,000 trees, all of which were bearing, on 150 acres.
    But it is perhaps Sam Rosenberg who is most responsible for making Medford one of the pear capitals of the world. A prosperous clothier and hotel owner, Rosenberg built the luxury Hotel Sorrento in Seattle in 1909, but one year later he bought the Weeks Brothers’ 237 acres of Comice pear trees for $300,000.
    The Rogue River valley, with its rich volcanic soils and sunny climate, proved better suited to the fickle and delicate Comice pear than its birthplace in France. Under Rosenberg's management, the pears took first place twice at the annual New York pear show.
    After Rosenberg died in 1914, his sons, Harry and David, took over the family business. Bear Creek Orchards flourished. When they built their first cold storage warehouse in 1924 it was the only one in the valley owned by a single firm.
    After the stock market crash in 1929, when other pear growers in the region considered ripping out their orchards in favor of more mainstream crops, the Rosenbergs innovated and found new ways to promote their fruit.
    By 1934, the brothers were enjoying a modest success with their fruit baskets, mailed "right from the orchard," and through continued hard work and innovation became one of the most successful mail order fruit businesses in the world.
    All this innovation just south of town built a valley-wide fruit industry, served by the packing houses, cold storage plants and freight yards of Medford.
 
So what did the enterprising citizens of Medford do when business and farming struggled? What they always did: they embraced the new and turned obstacle into opportunity.
    Even with early economic success, the question of whether Medford would survive was hardly settled. In the 1880s the new town had a small problem, and that problem was mud. Before paved roads it wasn’t uncommon, when traveling in the winter and spring, for the axle of a wagon to drag on the surface of the mud for the entire journey to town. Sometimes the horses would become so exhausted by the effort the driver would have to abandon the wagon and ride the muddy team to town. Farmers on the edges of the valley would have to stock up for winter and resign themselves to do without city goods and services until the roads dried up again. The roads were so bad that buildings in early Medford were built from lumber milled in Grants Pass--because it was easier to haul lumber 30 miles by rail than a few miles through the mud.
        The railroad conquered the mud, linking all the towns along Bear Creek with steel. But there was one town it didn’t link. So Medford set about improving their road to the county seat of Jacksonville, across some of the deepest, muddiest soil in the valley. It took them years to make it work, in the days when every scoop of gravel had to be shoveled by hand. Taking advantage of these hard-won roads, Medford’s orchardists and boom time real estate agents adopted the automobile early, and by 1905 Medford boasted more automobiles per capita than any other city in the country.
    By 1912 Medford had more than 18 miles of paved road.. Soon Jackson County was the first county in Oregon to offer a paved route from end to end, and Oregon was the first state west of the Mississippi able to make such a claim. That route, initially called the Pacific Highway and later Highway 99, followed the same ancient trade route along Riverside Avenue, through downtown. To the north, it ran to British Columbia and, to the south, all the way to Mexico.  Over 2,000 miles long, by 1926 this Road of Three Nations was the longest paved road in the world.
Medford’s section of that highway, Riverside Avenue, became known as “Auto Row,” lined with auto dealers, service stations, parts dealers (and, in the outskirts, junk yards), serving the automotive needs of the entire valley and the tourists that passed through it.
    And other ways to get to Medford were being dreamed of by its forward-thinking citizens. Seely Hall dreamed of bringing the first airplane to Medford. Instructed in aviation during his tour in the army in 1917, Hall raised money to purchase an airplane by promising a ride to every patron who invested in his venture. Hall, in partnership with Floyd Hart, purchased a Curtiss Jenny in Sacramento in 1919, formed the Medford Aircraft Company, and made good on those promised rides. His Jenny, christened “The Mayfly,” was the first civilian aircraft to fly over the Siskiyou Mountains.
    In 1922, the City of Medford and the county purchased a field at the south edge of town next to the old fairgrounds for use by the U.S. Forest Service. Newell Barber Field became the state’s first municipal airport and headquarters for the Forest Service Air Patrol.
    Three years later Vern Gorst, who ran the bus line between Medford and Jacksonville, came to town to discuss a bid on the US airmail contract with Seely Hall. Gorst wanted advice on beacons and a landing field for fuel and passengers in Ashland, not Medford. Hall was instrumental in persuading Gorst to instead locate the airmail stop in Medford, incorporating Pacific Air Transport in 1926. Five years later, Pacific Air Transport was one of the air carriers that united to form United Air Lines, and Hall remained a manager for United through his entire career. United remains a primary carrier at today’s Rogue Valley International--Medford Airport.

But there were more obstacles ahead for Medford and the rest of the nation. The biggest bust of all: The Great Depression, a time of local challenge and local heroes.
    After World War I, with much of the valley now irrigated, the valley enjoyed more stable growth. Reflecting its status as the commercial center of the valley, Medford became the Jackson County seat in 1927 and cemented its position as the political and commercial center of the valley. The good times ended in 1929 when the New York stock market crashed, and the whole country began its three-year slide to the bottom of the Great Depression.
    Long-simmering political tensions surfaced under the pressures of the depression. As banks closed, businesses failed, and workers lost jobs, orchardist and newspaperman Llewellyn Banks capitalized on this unrest and formed a movement called the Good Government Congress. Banks’ message of reform reverberated among citizens who resented the entrenched political order.  Unfortunately, the Good Government Congress quickly devolved into political insurgency, intimidation and violence.
    Robert Ruhl, publisher and editor of the Medford Mail Tribune, was the archetypal crusading small-town newspaperman. His   newspaper was a voice for progressive reform and an opponent of political machinations.
    Ruhl’s editorials in the Mail Tribune consistently condemned the character assassination and intimidation methods of the Good Government Congress and advised calm, urging citizens to stand by their government.  As a result, the Mail Tribune was boycotted by some and threatened with sabotage. The Tribune’s printers stood night guard at the press armed with shotguns.
    The insurgency came to a head when thieves stole an estimated 10,000 ballots from the Jackson County Courthouse vault to prevent a vote recount. Authorities suspected Llewellyn Banks. On March 16, 1933, Constable George Prescott went to the Banks home to serve an arrest warrant. Banks shot Prescott, who died instantly. The insurgency faded away after Banks’ imprisonment.
    In 1934, when it came time to award the Pulitzer Prize for "meritorious public service," the judges selected the Medford Mail Tribune for "its campaign against unscrupulous politicians in Jackson County, Oregon."
    The building at which the fatal shooting occurred, the Root-Banks House, still stands today on the northwest corner of Main and Peach streets. The Pulitzer gold medal hangs in the Publisher’s office at the Mail Tribune.

As the nation began to prosper again after the Depression, Medford was eager for a new opportunity.  President Roosevelt’s New Deal brought Medford’s first federal stimulus funds, and the 1940s brought World War II to the Rogue Valley.
    In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had initiated several New Deal programs to solve the immediate problem of relief for the unemployed. Among these, the Civilian Conservation Corps played an important role in combating Southern Oregon’s economic crisis. Between 1933 and 1941, the CCC put young men to work on fire suppression, road construction and park development. A CCC camp on the slopes of Medford’s Roxy Ann Peak worked to turn the peak into a park, among other projects. Construction materials purchased from local businesses helped keep Medford’s economy afloat.
    As the 1930s continued, growing tensions in Europe and Asia brought a need for military preparedness in America.   In early 1941 an article in the Medford Mail Tribune announced that the War Department was considering the “Agate Desert,” the area north of Medford, for an army training facility. An intense lobbying effort by Medford and county officials pointed out that the area’s flat topography would be perfect for the buildings and parade grounds the army would need. The Medford Corporation's lumber mill could provide the lumber, and Medford’s rail and air connections could provide the access to the outside world. A large architectural firm was set up in the Medford Armory and got busy designing the plans.
    Three days after the engineering office finished plans for the Medford camp, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. War was declared on December 7, 1941, and one month later the camp in Medford received the green light. Medford transformed into a military town.
    Work proceeded around the clock under huge lights. Traffic on Crater Lake Avenue was so heavy it was converted to a one way road coming out from Medford, with Table Rock Road becoming the one way road going the other direction. What we now call the Crater Lake Highway was built by the Army to take the load off Table Rock Road during construction. More than 10,000 workers flooded into the area, many living in trailers and tent cities.
    On September 15, 1942, the camp was officially dedicated as “Camp George A. White” after the former adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard, who had recently died.  Camp White became the second largest city in the state. It covered 77 square miles and trained 40,000 troops at a time.
    Camp White trained the Army’s 96th Division as well as engineering, medical, and artillery units between 1942 and 1945. But Camp White was first the home of the 91st "Fir Tree" Division under Major General Charles Gerhardt.
    Under Gerhardt’s tough leadership and the rugged conditions of the Rogue Valley’s mountainous landscape, heavy forests and arid plains, Camp White earned the nickname of the “Alcatraz" of training camps.
    Medford became the recreation center for those 40,000 trainees, requiring conversion of buildings into three separate USOs, one of them among the largest on the West Coast. Medford volunteers kept the soldiers busy with dances and socials, and in 1942 local families began an “Adopt-a-Soldier” program, inviting servicemen to their homes for “a real honest-to-goodness home-cooked meal.”
    The Army Air Corps took over the city airport, and skies above Medford also buzzed with wartime activities, as did the radio airways. The war gave radio station KMED the opportunity to program from, and for, the large military community at Camp White. Sgt. Jimmy Dunlevy served as MC for the many programs broadcast over NBC from Camp White. Dunlevy became the “voice of Camp White.” He stayed on after the war, continuing as a radio personality and eventually was elected Mayor of Medford, and served two terms.
    In the wake of Camp White, prosperity returned to Medford.  After the war, the federal investment in the military cantonment, in wages and in improvements in valley highways and water and waste treatment, help set the area for future growth. Camp White's building core provided the infrastructure for the White City Industrial Park, supporting the post-war expansion of southern Oregon's timber industry. Along with the unincorporated community surrounding the industrial area, the former Camp White area was renamed White City in 1960.

After the war ended, Medford was ready to seize its next opportunity. Another resource from Southern Oregon’s fertile soil allowed business leaders to turn the closure of Camp White into another boom.
    The closing of Camp White after World War II provided space for a growing lumber industry that fed the nation's postwar construction boom, milling lumber to build new homes for returning GIs. Timber overtook agriculture as a major economic force in southwestern Oregon, as advancing technology and new roads allowed logging in the high country.
    From the 1940s until the mid-’70s, timber production drove Medford’s economy and became a way of life for many residents. Local companies like Medco and Burrill worked alongside large lumber companies such as Georgia-Pacific, U.S. Plywood, and Weyerhaeuser to provide most cutting and lumber production.
    Timber companies hired large workforces to log and haul millions of board feet of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and other trees from public and private lands. Timber companies trucked large log shipments to modern milling facilities in Medford for conversion into lumber, plywood, veneer, and other products.
    Following earlier patterns of boom and bust, economic and environmental issues in the 1970s and ’80s eventually ended Medford’s timber reign. Southern Oregon’s timber industry changed markedly following implementation of long-term forest planning programs and the placement of the northern spotted owl on the endangered species list.
    Massive reduction in the federal timber harvest resulted in slashed revenue for timber companies, and mills closed throughout the region. Since 1980, at least twenty sawmills, veneer, or plywood mills have shut down in Southern Oregon, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs.
    But another industry that had seen a more modest boom after World War II continued to gain in economic viability for Medford and Southern Oregon.
    Thousands of additional visitors explored southwestern Oregon destinations in the years following World War II. Passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968 and subsequent listing of the Rogue, Illinois, Chetco, and North Fork Smith rivers raised public awareness and recreational use of these waterways. Visitors flock to these river canyons to fish for salmon and steelhead, raft the white water, camp, and hike. Tourists take mail boat day trips and jet boat excursions up the Rogue River.
    In recent years, protection of wild and scenic areas has grown as more people recognize the importance of natural resource preservation to the area’s beauty, livability, and economy. Debate continues, however, between conservation proponents, property-rights advocates, and timber industry representatives over wild areas and wetlands.
    Creating little debate is the expanding Southern Oregon wine industry, estimated as a $100 million business.
    Medford and the surrounding region has approximately 150 vineyards growing over 40 different varieties of grapes. The Rogue Valley’s rich soil is ideal for Bordelaise, Rhone, and Burgundian varietals. And unlike the rest of Oregon, the region has also enjoyed success with the two rare varietals Tempranillo, the red grape known best as the foundation of Spanish Rioja, and Viognier, a white grape previously found only in isolated parts of the Rhone region.

Always proud of its character as a forward-looking city, after World War II downtown Medford wholeheartedly embraced the new ultramodern International Style. For good or bad, art deco and the interstate changed the face of downtown Medford, bringing new growth and new challenge.
    Medford is only thirty years younger than Jacksonville, and at one time the two towns looked much the same. Jacksonville, however, could never keep pace with Medford’s economic growth--and with prosperity comes the commercial imperative to keep up with the times. Medford always strove to be modern or, better, ultramodern. The architectural trend started before World War II, when New Deal redevelopment funds helped building owners modernize and streamline their outmoded architecture with new styles like Art Deco and Chicago Style.
    After several stops and restarts, southern Oregon’s railroad passenger service finally ended in 1955, as America turned to the automobile.  In the late 1950s Medford pushed hard to be on the route of the new “Interstate Highway,” even lobbying to have it built through the center of town. Business leaders argued that, of all the alternative routes, the downtown route would remove the least orchard land from production. In 1964 Interstate 5 and the Viaduct were completed adjacent to downtown Medford, replacing the old Pacific Highway, and the freeway became the main route through the valley. 
    Then in 1986, the Rogue Valley Mall opened. Major retail stores that anchored downtown moved to the Mall. Downtown became a place of decline and empty spaces. Downtown revitalization became another challenge for Medford.
    In the 1990s, the Medford Urban Renewal Agency was formed to meet this challenge. MURA, in cooperation with business and property owners, dedicated an appreciable amount of resources to urban renewal in an attempt to revitalize the downtown area.
    Part of its vision was to protect the historic buildings and promote downtown vitality. MURA created a popular façade improvement program to help owners restore their buildings.
    Several old buildings were restored, including the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. MURA built new sidewalks, traffic signals, and bicycle lanes. Parking garages were built. Downtown Medford also received a new library building to replace the historic Medford Carnegie Library and now boasts satellite campuses for both Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University
    In 1997, Medford’s downtown district was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places and was accepted.
    Today economic, environmental, and political conflicts again bring challenge and opportunity. These aren't the first challenging times Medford has faced. Throughout its history Medford has always kept its face to the future, looking for that new opportunity in the midst of the challenge.
    As Medford meets today's challenges, we can maintain our town’s enterprising history by keeping one eye to how the people of Medford met the challenges of the past. Now it’s up to us to decide what we want Medford to be
.




The speech:

    Looking around us this gray afternoon, 127 years after Medford got its start, at the tall buildings and the self-propelled vehicles on our paved streets, it would be easy to mislead ourselves into thinking that all this was inevitable, that all it really took was a start, a beginning, and Medford would just build itself. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    Medford was never a foregone conclusion. Medford is here for one reason only, and that's through the vision and sacrifice of our predecessors, the people who lived here before us, who saw opportunities or made opportunities, and worked and sacrificed to make them real.
    It started in 1883, when the railroad was looking for a place to put what Jacksonville called "our depot." Actually putting the depot in Jacksonville, up next to the hills, was out of the question. Central Point was the logical place; Central Point is actually closer to Jacksonville than was this brush-covered spot in the middle of nowhere. But the good farmers of Central Point were reluctant to give the Oregon & California Railroad the incentives and inducements--what they called back then the "bonus"--that the railroad needed to pay for the expensive proposition of laying track through their part of the state.
    There was no town on the site of Medford in those days, there were only two farmers, Ide Phipps and Charley Broback, who lived along what we now call Riverside Avenue--the county road, the old Applegate Trail, the old Siskiyou Trail. And those two had the vision to see the opportunity and the willingness to make a sacrifice to realize that vision. They approached the railroad with an offer: We'll give you 20 acres for your depot, and if you survey a town we'll give you every other block to sell.
    The O&C railroad couldn't pass this up. They built the depot, in the middle of Seventh Street, and a small town immediately grew up around it. This doesn't mean that the question of whether Medford would survive was settled. Because the new town had a small problem, and that problem was that people couldn't get to it in the winter. Before paved roads, it wasn't uncommon for the axle of your wagon to drag on the surface of the mud for much of your trip to town. It wasn't uncommon for a wagon to get stuck in the mud, the horses exhausted. The driver would have to abandon the wagon and ride the muddy team to town. The roads were so bad that buildings in early Medford were built from lumber milled near Grants Pass--because it was easier to haul lumber 30 miles by rail than a few miles over muddy roads.
    The roads were so bad that, since Jacksonville residents could barely get to Medford, and Central Point didn't have a depot, people started having their freight delivered at Phoenix. The issue of whether there would ever really be a Medford was in doubt. So the little town of Medford set about improving their road to the county seat of Jacksonville. It took them years to do it--in the days when every single speck of gravel had to be shoveled into the wagon by hand--but they did it.
    And Medford grew. And other challenges and opportunities presented themselves. When George Horatio Chick came to town with the idea to build a gold ore smelter, he didn't have to built it on Fir Street in Medford. But no other town would offer him the bonus he asked. Medford did, and Medford got the smelter. Turned out, however, that Chick was somewhat of a charlatan, and the investors lost their shirts, but Medford profited nevertheless. Because of that failed smelter Medford gained the reputation as an enterprising town, a forward-looking town--so when Ansel Davis came to the valley with the ambition to build a flour mill, he came to Medford. Medford gave him incentives, and he built his mill in Medford, over on the corner of Ninth and Front. William Barnum came to the valley and wanted to build a planing mill, so he came to Medford. Medford gave him his bonus, and he built his planing mill over by the creek.
    But the issue of Medford's survival was again in doubt when Jacksonville finally scraped the money together to build their own railroad, to connect their struggling town to the main line. By this time Central Point had a depot too, and Central Point was closer to Jacksonville. Medford was second in the running. If that line had been built to Central Point, Central Point would have sucked the life out of Jacksonville instead of Medford, Central Point would have become the metropolis of the valley, and we'd be standing in the Central Point Carnegie library today instead of in Medford. But Medford was the only town that came up with a bonus to secure that railroad from Jacksonville, the tracks of which ran right down the middle of Eighth Street behind us. A $35,000 bonus. In 1890 dollars. Worth about a million dollars today.
    I could go on. Medford has met other challenges and opportunities. The challenge of finding a water source, which we finally found 31 miles away in the mountains. The challenge of establishing the state's first municipal airport. The challenge of bringing Camp White here and not only surviving its closure, but turning its closure into an opportunity for industry.
    These are difficult times in 2010, but they aren't the first difficult times Medford has faced. I like to say that it's interesting how once a culture gets established it just doesn't change, no matter how much time or how many people flow through. Throughout its 127 years Medford has always kept its face to the future. The people of Medford have always looked for opportunity in Medford's challenges, and they've found it. As we meet today's challenges, we need to keep one eye to the future. And you and I need to decide what we want Medford to be, and what we are willing to sacrifice to get it.
Ben Truwe, delivered at the Carnegie Library, February 24, 2010, on the occasion of Medford’s 125th anniversary 


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JACKSONVILLE IS REAL RELIC
OF THE HARDY PIONEER DAYS
Old Upbuilders of Southern Oregon, While in Reunion There, Recalled the Woes and Pleasures, Prosperity and Poverty of Town's Early History--Railroad Blamed for Decline--Fighting Spirit Still Shown.
    The Southern Oregon pioneers held their annual reunion last year at Jacksonville in mid-September. No more harmonious surroundings could have been chosen for this patriarchal assembly than the historic old town around which the early life of Southern Oregon was centered. The remaining flagstone walks, the antiquated but solid old buildings, the rocky dry bed of Jackson Creek, the graveyard on the hill and numerous other landmarks served as apt reminders of the days, back in the '50s, when the town and neighboring gulches were scenes of the blood-red battle of the survival of the fittest.
    The sight of that venerable procession which on a perfect autumn day in September last wended its way from the court house beneath the giant maples was one most impressive to those of a younger generation. In this procession there were 50 or 60 silvery-headed men and women, weak and bent by years but grand in their achievements.
    Jacksonville recalled vividly to the old pioneers the memories of days when they were young together in the wilds of Southern Oregon. It was in Jacksonville that the first settlement in Southern Oregon was made. It was there that the first gold in the state was discovered. Jacksonville was the metropolis of the southern part of Oregon from the resulting gold mining days of the '50s until 1884, when it was passed up and its growth checked by the Oregon & California Railroad. Since 1884 Jacksonville has declined, while Medford, which was not in existence until the railroad was built, has prospered and taken the lead as the metropolis of Southern Oregon. It seems bold to state that a town in the growing West has actually declined, but such is the case. In 1883, just before the railroad had been built across the border of Josephine and Jackson counties, the population of Jacksonville was 1200; today it is 800; the assessed valuation then was $500,000; last year it was $356,000. The newest of the numerous brick business blocks was built in 1884, and not a brick has been laid since.
Old Town Revives.
    A new era of prosperity, however, appears to be in store for "Jacktown." The valuation of property this year will be in the neighborhood of $450,000, showing an increase in property values of $90,000 in the last year. Jacksonville has issued bonds for the construction of a city water system and is busy putting in cement sidewalks, preparing itself for the new role of a residence district of Medford.
    The history of Jacksonville falls naturally into three periods. Called into existence by the discovery of gold on Jackson Creek in 1851, its prosperity waned as the gold pockets were cleaned out and the miners left. But with gold gone the town entered upon a more wholesome growth as the trade center of a nature-blessed farming region. In 1884 came the blighting railroad, which robbed the town of its commercial prestige and left it in an out-of-the-way nook to slumber in tranquility. Forsaken by its young blood for more stirring scenes, Jacksonville has slumbered on as the home of the pioneers who built and made the town back in the '50s. If a Rip Van Winkle had slept 50 years instead of 20, and today awoke to walk the streets of Jacksonville, he would see wizened but familiar faces. Those whom he missed would be found in the graveyard on the hill, which each year is reaping a greater harvest of gray-haired pioneers. Nine died last winter.
    Between the time of its fall as a commercial center and the present time, Jacksonville has had no history worth recounting, But today Jacksonville is recognized as a healthy, beautiful, sheltered village in the hills, with substantial schools, and is an ideal place for a home.
Valley Then Dangerous.
    In the spring of 1851, Halstead and Vannoy had the only two cabins in the Rogue River Valley, and these were at the fords where the trail between Oregon City and California crossed the Rogue. The Rogue River Valley was considered a dangerous portion of the trip between the gold fields of California and the lower Willamette Valley, on account of the treacherous Rogue River Indians, who inhabited the region. Although the wonderful fertility of the soil, and the mildness of the climate of Southern Oregon had been heralded broadcast by travelers through the region, the homeseekers preferred to settle in the safer precincts of the Willamette Valley.
    It was left to the lure of gold to start the inrush of settlers into the Rogue River Valley. In December, 1851, James Clugage and J. Poole discovered gold on Jackson Creek. Almost immediately gold was discovered, as well in Rich Gulch and other neighboring ravines. The news of El Dorado where a pint of gold could be washed out in a day spread like wildfire to the gold fields of Northern California and from thence throughout the world.
Saloons Follow Miners.
    From a spot in the wilderness in 1851, Jacksonville sprung into a hustling mining town with nine stores, three blacksmith shops, a carpenter shop and saloons galore in the fall of 1863. In the summer of 1852 Henry Klippel and Smith made a partial survey of the settlement, forming Oregon and California streets, around which the town was built.
    The privations of the first winter after the gold was discovered were intense. A prolonged snow storm delayed bringing in of supplies until several of the younger men struck out with snow shoes across the Siskiyous and returned with supplies on their backs for the hungry miners. Prices paid for supplies that winter seem preposterous even when compared with those of this day of high cost of living. Flour sold at $1 a pound and salt was not to be had for money, although one pioneer living today, Vint Beall, tells of buying it with an equal weight of gold. Game and beer were plentiful, however, and these were the main sources of nourishment through the winter. [No other account mentions beer as being available at all.]
Crimes Not Numerous.
    Queer to relate, crime was infrequent during the first few years of the camp's existence, despite the fact that the riffraff of many nations had been attracted to the district and gambling and drunkenness were the main order of the day and night when the weather kept the miners from their sluice boxes and cradles. Although there was no legal court until the fall of 1853, there was a rough sense of justice among the miners, which would brook no crime. One man named Brown shot a man named Potts in the summer of 1852. The guilty one was tried by jury of which David Linn, father of Fletcher Linn, of Portland, was a member. The slayer was hanged at the present site of an old Presbyterian church. The settlers, to meet this emergency, adopted the Iowa code, which they used thereafter until the meeting of the first regular federal court September 5, 1853. The court was presided over by Matthew P. Deady as United States district judge of the Territory of Oregon.
    L. F. Grover, later governor and senator of Oregon, was United States district attorney, and other men who later became prominent also participated in this, the first legal court held south of Albany. The sentences of the judge in this early court were carried out without delay. At a meeting of the court in October of the same year three Indians called Thompson, George and Tom, convicted of the murder of two white men, James C. Kyle and Edwards, were hanged the day after their conviction. In fact, rumor has it that the Indian Thompson was hanged immediately after sentence. The customary two or three months was not given to murderers for repentance in the pioneer days of Jacksonville, and court records show no instances in which manslayers were judged insane. This sternness of the courts was responsible for the scarcity of crime during the first years of Jacksonville's existence under the rule of federal law.
Massacre Infuriates Town.
    Like most pioneer settlements in America, Jacksonville had its chapter of Indian massacre and relentless retaliation on the part of the whites. Although whites had been murdered on the trails, the inhabitants of Jacksonville themselves were not molested by the redskins until the middle of the summer of 1853. One August day of that year a rifle shot was heard in the canyon west of town and a few moments later the mule of Thomas Wells, a miner, came thundering into town with a blood-stained saddle. The sequel to the incident was the finding of Wells in his death blood beside the road leading to the mines. A day or two later a settler named Nolan was killed not far from town. By this time the inhabitants were in a frenzy of fear and excitement, and the town was not well protected and ammunition was scarce. Indeed, it was known that if the Indians had the courage they could sack the town. During this time of dread and fear two Indian boys came into the town, prompted by curiosity, and expecting no harm. Immediately the rumor spread that they were spies and in an insane moment they were hanged, the boys protesting in their broken English that they meant no harm. This irrational slaying of the Indian youths is a black stain upon the history of Southern Oregon and an act afterwards greatly deplored by the inhabitants of Jacksonville. It is thought that this deed of the whites was partly responsible for the fierce cruelty of the Rogue River Indians towards the whites in the wars that followed.
    In May of 1853, Cram, Rogers & Co., of Yreka, a branch of the Adams Express Company, opened an express office in Jacksonville and employed C. C. Beekman, the pioneer banker of Southern Oregon, and once gubernatorial candidate, at that time a fearless youth, as a messenger. It was the duty of C. C. Beekman, the father of B. B. Beekman, a Portland attorney, to carry the precious gold from the mines of Jacksonville over the Siskiyou Mountains to Yreka during these stirring times of nefarious warfare with the Indians. Wondrous to relate, his path was never successfully blocked nor his pack of gold stolen. [Beekman's route to Yreka didn't lend itself to highway robbery. Even in stage coach days robbers preferred to ply their trade on the Topsy Grade or near Redding.] His custom was to travel at night when Indian nature and habit protected him from dangers other than those of travel through mountains in the dark. The nearest approach to death that Mr. Beekman had was when a crowd of Indians allowed him to pass unmolested to kill the driver and rob the packs of a train of mules a few hundred yards behind him.
    The Indians, with their wars and ill-kept treaties, were a source of worry and danger to the inhabitants of Jacksonville until 1856, when the whole tribe was taken into custody and transported to Siletz Reservation, in the Willamette, where they were placed in charge of General Grant. [U. S. Grant never served on or near an Oregon reservation.]
    A study of the Indian wars of Southern Oregon reveals that the cruelty of Indians toward the whites was equaled, if not surpassed, by the cruelty of the whites toward the Indians.
    Despite the troubles with the Indians, Jacksonville in the summer and fall of 1853 witnessed a remarkable growth. All the hillsides and gulches before this time had been staked out, and miners were at work reaping large returns. Dives of all kinds had opened in Jacksonville to trap the miners' gold. Homeseekers from the Willamette Valley were settling in the valley. A joint Methodist and Presbyterian church was built that summer by the more staid portion of the inhabitants, most of whom had come from the north. Subscriptions to help the cause were obtained from gamblers and saloon-keepers without a scruple, as the question of tainted money had not arisen in that day. This church, one of the very oldest in the Northwest, still remains.
School Teacher Arrives.
    The same summer Mary Royal, a young school teacher just from the East, opened a school in Jacksonville. [Mary Royal was not the first teacher, though she was one of the first Sunday school teachers.] Generous gifts of gold from the miners and tuition charges of from $5 to $8 a quarter sustained the school. Sixty students were enrolled the first year.
    Two other happenings which marked 1854 as a banner year of growth in Jacksonville were the birth of the first white child, James Cluggage [sic] McCully, August 27, named in honor of James Clugage, the founder of the town and the building of the first brick building. [McCully was born in 1853, not 1854; the Brunner Building was built in 1855.] A combination of clay and sandstone of the desert was used as a substitute for lime in constructing the buildings.
    The first newspaper of Southern Oregon, the Table Rock Sentinel, was established by W. G. T'Vault in 1855. It announced itself as independent in politics, but proved to be Democratic dyed in the wool. In 1857 the Jacksonville Herald was started by Beggs & Burns and for a number of years thereafter Jacksonville boasted of two newspapers. A year or two later the Oregon Gazette was founded but was doomed to a short existence. The paper became so rankly populistic and anarchistic that the government in 1861 refused it the use of the mails. [The Southern Oregon Gazette was born and died in 1861.] The papers were representative of the Civil War times. Politics were fought out in Jacksonville hundreds of miles away from railroad connections with the civilized world with all the ferocity of the period save bloodshed.
    In the later '50s the mines began to give out and many of the miners were attracted to Eldorado, newly found in Idaho. [This is probably a reference to the 1858 Fraser Canyon gold rush in British Columbia.] By 1860 the prosperity of Jacksonville did not depend upon its mines as greatly as it did upon the fertile farms of the valley. In 1860 a wagon road from Waldo in Josephine County to Crescent City, Cal. was opened for travel. [Crescent City was founded in 1853 for the purpose of trade with the interior; pack trails were opened immediately. A wagon road from Crescent City was opened in 1858.] This made it possible for passengers and baggage to be carried by wagon from the seacoast to Jacksonville to Crescent City. The opening of the road cut freight rates in two and brought many of the luxuries of the outside world to the residents of Jacksonville. [Luxuries were available by pack train from Jacksonville's birth; a wagon road to the sea at Scottsburg was completed in 1855.]
Sacramento Stage Starts.
    On the first day of July of the same year the California Stage Company opened its daily stage line from Sacramento to Portland. The stage made the trip in 13 days and many of the travelers were glad of the opportunity of resting a couple of days at Jacksonville en route. [The schedule was four days from Portland to San Francisco.] The building of the two wagon roads marked the end of the pack train, which had played such an essential part in the making of Jacksonville. No longer were the strings of mules and their daredevil drivers seen swinging into town. The packers either left for regions unknown or took up the more staid profession of the stage driver
    During the '60s Jacksonville became noted for its wealth, its fine homes, its culture, its hospitality and its general prosperity. The farms of the valley and the vineyards on the hillsides were extremely productive. Flour, fruits, wine and meat were sold to the miners in Northern California. Gradually the supply outgrew the demand and the industries suffered from lack of railroad transportation facilities. However, the Rogue River Valley was known as the land of plenty.
    Jacksonville was not without its troubles, however, during this period of commercial prosperity. In 1868 smallpox broke out among the halfbreeds in one end of the town. The doctors pronounced the disease chickenpox, and before the mistake was discovered the plague had spread throughout the town. Terror seized
the townsmen, and there were few who dared nurse the sick and bury the dead. It was believed that smoke would kill the germs, and accordingly great fires were built in the streets around which the people gathered both by night and by day. The work of the Catholic priest and sisters during this calamity was heroic. They were the only ones who were not afraid to nurse the sick. [Other nurses were active, especially those who were family members or previously vaccinated.] When the epidemic had run its course, 40 victims had been buried in the graveyard on the hill.
Flood Destroys Much.
    The next year a cloudburst in Jackson Creek canyon caused a flood that brought rain to part of the town and to the farmers along the stream. In 1873 a fire broke out in the Union Hotel [it was the United States Hotel], which destroyed $75,000 worth of property within a hour. The following year Jacksonville suffered another fire nearly as destructive. No other calamities of moment struck Jacksonville until 1884 when the California & Oregon Railroad passed it by. In fact in 1883 Jacksonville was in a most prosperous condition with glowing prospects.
    The August number of the West Shore magazine in 1883 speaks of Jacksonville as follows:
    "The county seat of Jackson County is Jacksonville, once the liveliest mining camp of this region and is still the most important trade center. The conditions of its existence have gradually changed from that of a rudely constructed and transient mining camp to that of a thriving trade center for a large expanse of mining and agricultural country. Its business is firmly established, its business buildings large and substantial, and its private residences neat and often elegant. It has always held the position of the leading town of Southern Oregon, which its enterprising business men are determined to maintain."
    The fundamental reason why the railroad decided to build a new town in the valley rather than pass through Jacksonville was the elevation of the town among the hills. Citizens of Jacksonville maintained that the railroad would lose neither in distance nor in grading if it laid its tracks through Blackwell gap and skirted the hills to Jacksonville and therefore refused to pay the bonus the railroad demanded.
    It is the same ridge of mountains that bars the building of a railroad from Medford to Crescent City. If the desired road from Medford to the sea coast is ever built, undoubtedly the citizens of Medford will be called upon to give a large bonus to help build a tunnel through the obstructing mountains.
Fight Kept Up.
    Jacksonville did not die without a struggle. For years it fought zealously for commercial supremacy. The cards were stacked against Jacksonville, and its game was a losing one.
    Until 1891 Jacksonville had no railroad connection with the main line at Medford. In this year Honeyman & Hart company [Honeyman, DeHart & Co.], of Portland, built a railroad between the two towns. A few years later it was bought by William Barnum, who with the boys has been conducting it ever since. The Rogue River Valley Railway bears the distinction of being the only railroad company in the world in which all the officers from president to rail greaser are held by members of the same family.
    The possession of the courthouse has kept aglow the sparks of life in Jacksonville during the last 20 years. By an act of the legislature on January 12, 1852, Jackson County including within its borders the present boundaries of Josephine, Curry, Coos and Jackson counties was carved from the territory then known as Linn County. The courthouse of the new county naturally fell to Jacksonville, as it was the only town within the boundaries of the new county. Josephine, Curry and Coos counties were formed from Jackson as soon as they became settled.
    The Jackson County courthouse, built in 1884, is antiquated and outgrown.
    Better transportation facilities in the shape of trolley lines are being planned to the Rogue River Valley, and it is extremely doubtful if any serious attempts will be made in the future to change the county seat from Jacksonville. The large shade trees and luxuriant foliage around the homes in Jacksonville, with the town's sheltered position in the foothills, make it attractive for a home, and no protests are made by the county officials for being obliged to live in such a quiet town. The park around the home of Peter Britt, deceased, who was perhaps the pioneer photographer in Oregon, settled in Jacksonville in 1852, is almost tropical in its nature. Its luxuriant shrubbery includes large palm, banana, Smyrna fig, English walnut and almond trees. Nowhere could be found a spot more beautiful, and there are other homes that have nearly as charming environments.
Aged Pioneers Argue.
    In the last meeting of the Southern Oregon pioneers in Jacksonville, where so many of them live, strange arguments are heard. The question arose as to who was the oldest living pioneer of Southern Oregon. The dispute for first honors between E. K. Anderson and Mrs. Kinney, daughter of T'Vault, the pioneer editor, was carried on under considerable difficulty on account of the deafness of the members of the organization. Finally it was decided that E. K. Anderson had arrived a few months earlier in the spring of 1852 than Mrs. Kinney. This left to Mrs. Kinney the honor of being the oldest living woman pioneer.
    Mrs. Kinney, now a great-grandmother, possesses a clear memory, which seems not to have been weakened by her years. Her recollection of pioneer days is one of the best sources of information concerning the early history of Southern Oregon.
    When Mrs. Kinney came south from the lower Willamette Valley in 1852 Jacksonville was the only town south of Albany. Eugene Skinner had settled on his homestead at the present site of Eugene and Aaron Rose had built his home where Roseburg now stands, but there were at that time no settlements at those places.
    Jacksonville may never fully awake from her slumbers, and one of the valley towns may rob her of the courthouse, but the town will always remain as a monument of pioneer days. As General T. G. Reames, one of the pioneers who died a few years ago, said:
    "They may rob Jacksonville of everything else, but they cannot rob her of the cemetery on the hill, where lie so many of the men and women who helped carve a civilization out of the wilderness."
ARTHUR M. GEARY.
Medford Mail Tribune, March 26, 1911, page B1

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY.
    The city of Medford stands in the center of a high valley between the Cascade and the Coast ranges in the southwest corner of the state of Oregon, the valley itself lying about thirty miles from the Oregon-California boundary and about seventy-five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. The valley floor is about fourteen hundred feet in elevation, about fifty miles in extent in any direction, and is surrounded by mountains varying in height from foothills to five thousand feet. The valley is drained by the Rogue River, which rises in the summit of the Cascades near Crater Lake, and takes its name from the river.
    During the early westward movements the valley lay in the path of migration, and in the [early 'fifties] pioneers, attracted by the great fertility of the soil, took up the first donation claims. The first influx of numbers of people took place in 1851 with the discovery of gold in the western foothills. A mushroom mining town sprang up which was given the name of Jacksonville, and millions of dollars in gold dust were weighed in the scales of the old United States Hotel and the Beekman Bank. In the course of a generation, buildings were erected of such permanence as to be still in use. This town on the side of the valley stood on the main line of travel over the stage and post roads from California north, from the Willamette Valley south, and also from the Klamath Valley west.
    As the natural resources of western Oregon were developed the 
[Oregon & California Railroad] began building from the north and from the south toward the Rogue River Valley. The thriving town of Jacksonville, either failing to see the commercial advantage of deflecting the railroad to a course within its limits, or considering it a ruthless, noisy invader greedy for gain, refused to grant a right of way. [The preceding sentence is supposition; see here and here.] Finally, in 1883, about twenty acres of privately owned land out in the center of the valley were offered to the [Oregon & California Railroad], were accepted, and the railroad built straight across the valley from the opening at the northwest to the high Siskiyou Pass a little to the southeast. About this right of a way a townsite of eighty-one acres was laid out, alternate blocks being held by the [Oregon & California Railroad] and four private holders.
    This was the origin of the present city of Medford. The first incorporation as a town was two years later, in 1885. The railroad company sold and gave away their holdings, [some of] the old churches, for example, standing on land thus given. These four holders of the original townsite, together with some other pioneer families, and their descendants, carry down the historical traditions of Medford and the Rogue River Valley to the present generation and to the hundreds of newcomers. There is a pioneer association and a distinct interest in everything pertaining to the events of the earlier days and the people who were active in the upbuilding of the valley.
ECONOMIC BACKGROUND.
    The development of orchards began immediately, and many a fortune drained away in the planting of trees and in the years of waiting for them to bear. Grain and hay were staple crops from the beginning, while the mines at Jacksonville and Gold Hill and the timber at Butte Falls formed a still more substantial economic raison d'etre of the new town. [Butte Falls timber couldn't be tapped until it was reached by the Pacific & Eastern Railroad in 1910. Until the 1920s, Medford's only lumber mills were either box mills or planing mills.] It continued to grow and in 1905 was incorporated as a city.
Excerpt, E. Fay Woolsey, "A Survey of the Library Services of the City of Medford, Oregon," 1931. Jackson County Library.


Oregon's First Gold Camp
Stirring Narrative of Early-Day Mining in and Near Jacksonville
BY JOHN ROLFE BURROUGHS

    Two wayward mules and a drink of water played an important part in the discovery of gold in Southern Oregon.
    One evening late in the autumn of 1851 James Clugage and James Poole, returning to Yreka, Cal, from Crescent City, laden with provisions, made camp on Bear Creek near the site of Medford, Or. They awakened the following morning to find themselves possessed of some hundreds of pounds of provisions but minus any adequate means of transporting them to Yreka, the two pack mules having decamped during the night. Ever on the alert for the Rogue River Indians, who had fallen into the habit of plundering white people traveling through their country, Poole and Clugage trailed the mules guided by their hoof prints, which showed plainly in the recently rain-soaked soil.
    History does not relate which one of the men dismounted on the bank of a little stream and stretching out at full length to take a drink spied a glittering array of gold nuggets scarce six inches from the tip of his nose. Gold was discovered, and the name of Rich Gulch given to the ravine. Close by this ravine converged with a stream whose sands proved to be even richer in gold. This stream was called Jackson Creek, in honor of Andrew Jackson, and the village which sprang up on the tongue of land lying between the two streams was called Jacksonville. [There are many versions of the gold discovery story; none of which agree with each other.]
    The influx of substantial, hard-working miners and tradespeople into Jacksonville was immediately followed by the arrival of the parasitic element which invariably follows in the wake of mining and other booms giving promise of quick and abundant wealth. A mile up Jackson Creek from the village, Kanaka Flat was dotted with the tents of the miners and the hastily and illy constructed resorts wherein they took their pleasure after a hard day's labor with pan, rocker or sluice. Saloons, dance halls, gaming and bawdy houses arose almost overnight.
    It is impossible to estimate the number of people living in Jacksonville and engaged in mining in the vicinity in the summer of 1852. Estimates vary from 3000 to 10,000 souls.
    Suffice to say when winter came there were far too many. The winter of 1852-53 was one of the severest recorded in the history of Southern Oregon. Snow began falling in November, and by December every means of ingress into the crowded mining camp was effectively blocked. [Snow didn't fall in Jacksonville until the middle of December.] It was not long until it became startlingly apparent to the snowbound citizenry that the demand for foodstuffs far exceeded the supply--nor were there airplanes in those days to swoop down and drop the life-giving necessities from the sky.
    By the middle of December only a very limited amount of flour, some dried fruit, cheese and a quantity of "poor" beef remained in camp. The Table Rock Billiard Saloon and Bakery, one of the first business houses to open its doors in Jacksonville [most accounts record that it didn't open until 1856], was daily besieged by throngs eager to buy--not drinks, but bread, the price of which had risen to 50 cents a loaf.
Flour Brings Big Price.
    A story is told which well illustrates the stringency of the situation, and the temper of the times. It seems Peter Britt, the first man to bring a camera into Oregon, and the first to photograph Crater Lake of national park fame, possessed a 50-pound sack of flour which he was carefully hoarding for his own use throughout the coming months. News of this cache was bruited about until it came to the ears of "Pie John" Wintjen and H. Helm, proprietors of the Table Rock Billiard Saloon and Bakery. [Hermann Helm did not arrive in the U.S. until 1853.] They were desperately in need of the raw materials, without which the name "bakery" applied to their establishment speedily would become a tantalizing reminiscent fiction. They approached Britt, offering to buy his flour. He refused to sell.
    It was not long until public opinion was aroused and Britt stood before his fellow townspeople in a very unfavorable light. Upon the advice of friends solicitous for his welfare, he finally agreed to part with the flour for $50. Messrs. Wintjen and Helm paid with alacrity and seized upon the prize, which they converted into dried-apple pies that were sold to the Christmas trade for $1 apiece, the speculators realizing a nice return on their investment.
    Dear as was flour, salt was infinitely more precious. Near Ashland, a distance of 18 miles from Jacksonville, there are lithia springs, known in the old days as the "Salt Springs." Under the pressure of necessity men from Jacksonville visited these springs and boiled down an enormous quantity of water in order to obtain the precious salt-containing residue. If salt was sold it was weighed on a regular gold balance, the exchange being made on the basis of an equal weight of salt for gold.

    In 1853 Cram, Rogers & Co. of Yreka, a concern closely affiliated with the express firm of Adams & Co. of San Francisco, opened up communications with Jacksonville, C. C. Beekman acting as their messenger. During his subsequent career, first as a messenger for Cram, Rogers & Co., and later on his own account, Mr, Beekman is credited with carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold dust across the Siskiyou Mountains to Yreka without experiencing a loss.
Spanish Charger Cherished.
    One is amazed to learn that except for periods when the Indians were actively on the warpath Mr. Beekman did not carry firearms. He used three horses in making the trip, crossing the mountains on a Spanish charger capable of maintaining a steady gallop up hill and down dale for ten miles at a stretch. This horse was purchased in California, and in those days of cheap horse flesh, cost $1000.
    By 1853 a substantial class of tradespeople had opened up permanent establishments in the mining camp. Sachs Brothers, "wholesale and retail dealers in fancy and domestic dry goods, clothing, boots and shoes, hats, ladies' and gents' furnishing goods, tobacco and cigars, groceries, wines and liquors," under the management of I. Sachs, was a flourishing concern. The far-famed Franco-American restaurant and general stage house had also opened its doors under the management of Madam DeRoboam, better known as Madam Holt. Another much-patronized business house was a brewery operated by one Veit Schutz. Schutz had a famously short memory for names. The brewery's ledger reveals that among his debtors on open account were: 1853, Nov. 3--Man who fell in the mud, beer, $0.75; Nov. 12--Fellow with the buckskin pants, $0.50.
Good Trade Recorded.
    And we must take our hats off to one shrewd merchant with an eye for values whose books disclosed the following entry:
W. A. Owen (Woodman)--
9 yds. Blea. Muslin $2.70
4 yds. Bro. Muslin 1.44
MEMO: Paid, one gallon 1815 whiskey.
    In these droughty days the exchange of a gallon of 1815 whiskey for 13 yards of muslin savors strongly of the Manhattan Island purchase.
    The classic account is that of "Hary" Home, debtor, appearing on the books of the Table Rock Billiard Saloon and Bakery. A portion of Mr. Home's account may be condensed and analyzed as follows:
1854--
Jan. 24th, 16 drinks (whiskey) @ $  .25
Jan. 25th, 13 drinks
Jan. 26th, 15 drinks
Jan. 27th,   6 drinks
Jan. 28th, 21 drinks
Jan. 29th, 29 drinks
Jan. 29th, 1 bottle brandy $1.50
                 1 can oysters 2.50
    Total (drinks) 100, time 6 days, average 16.6 drinks per day.
    Now it can be argued that Mr. Home's friends undoubtedly took part in this drinking bout. On the other hand the customs in regard to standing treat in the early days are well known; it was turn and turn about, and any infraction of this rule was apt to result disastrously for the infractor. Also, the Table Rock Saloon was only one of 17 similar establishments in Jacksonville, and Mr. Home may or may not have visited the remaining 16 saloons.
    In this instance we feel justified in accepting circumstantial evidence which convicts (or congratulates) Mr. Home on the count of having himself, in person, downed somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 whiskeys in six days and, we trust, on the seventh he rested--or was arrested. There were men in those days.

Express Company Fails.
    In [1855] the Adams Express Company failed, carrying Cram, Rogers & Co. under with it. This left Jacksonville without an express service. Mr. Beekman seized the opportunity to start an express business of his own. At the same time he opened a gold-buying office, calling his enterprise the "C. C. Beekman Express and Banking House."
    In later years the name was changed to "C. C. Beekman's Banking House." Despite his new responsibilities, Mr. Beekman kept to the trail as a messenger until 1863, when the Wells, Fargo Express company extended its operations into Jacksonville. Mr. Beekman immediately discontinued his own express service and was retained by Wells, Fargo as its agent.
    Mr. Beekman already was well and favorably known throughout the Oregon-California mining country. When he started his bank he at once became the central figure about which the business life of Jacksonville and of Jackson County hinged. A large portion of the gold mined in the county found its way into the bank's stone vault, either for safekeeping or in exchange for eagles and double eagles. In 1858 this stone vault was literally the only strongbox in Southern Oregon. [Today's stone vault was not built until 1863. It was preceded by the large iron safe still in the bank, which in turn replaced a smaller safe, now lost.]
    Today the Beekman banking house is in the custody of a caretaker. In accordance with the late Mr. Beekman's wishes, the interior of the bank remains exactly as it was when the bearded, mud-bespattered miners plopped their worn pokes onto the counter beside the glass-enclosed gold balance. [The kid or deerskin bags miners used to hold their gold dust were universally called "purses" during the gold rush. Journalists began referring to them as "pokes" in the early 1900s.] One can visualize Mr. Beekman bending over the counter grinding fragments of gold-bearing quartz to a powder in the iron mortar which still stands beside the balance. [The mortar has since disappeared.] He poured the gold from the poke onto a flat scoop. He took up the scoop, shook it back and forth, the while blowing out the lighter waste materials. Then he passed the points of a horseshoe magnet over the surface to extract chance fragments of the treacherous iron-containing "black sand." He weighed the cleaned gold, deftly adding and subtracting weights, the smallest of which exactly balanced 12½ cents worth of gold dust. Then he poured the dust through a funnel back into the poke, and if the miner desired to leave it with the bank for safekeeping he gave him a receipt. Such was their faith in Mr. Beekman's integrity, more often than not the miners refused to take a receipt.
    Standing within the dimly lighted interior of the old bank, it takes but little imagination to conjure up the colorful scenes with which its working days were filled. Behind the counter was Mr. Beekman, or perhaps his cashier, Mr. Hayden, tallying the weights and computing the value of a glistening yellow heap resting casually on the gold balance; so many pounds, so many ounces, of such and such a value per ounce, equals--so much. [U.S. Hayden died in 1879 and was replaced by John Boyer, who died 1902. Henry Dox was Beekman's last clerk, serving to Beekman's death and the closure of the bank in 1915.] The miner nodded, turned and walked to the door. He paused there an instant with his hands on his hips before stepping onto the board sidewalk. He hailed.a friend--slapped Dirty Charley from Jumpoff Joe Creek on the back; the two men greeted each other with jovial profanity--walked off in the direction of the Marble Corner Saloon. Within the bank Mr. Beekman placed one more buckskin poke within the massive stone vault. He made an entry on the books:
    "J. Thompson, 17 oz. at $16.30, $272.10."
    Behind him, hanging on the wall, were the gold-framed legends:
   

WELLS, FARGO AND COMPANY'S
DRAFTS ON PARIS.
   
GOLD DUST SHIPPED TO THE ATLANTIC
STATES AND INSURED.
   
WELLS, FARGO AND COMPANY'S
DRAFTS ON UNION BANK, LONDON.
   
GOLD DUST RECEIVED AND
FORWARDED FOR COINAGE TO
THE U.S. MINT.
   
    In addition to his banking activities Mr. Beekman served Jacksonville for a score of years in various capacities, first as commissioner, then as mayor and for many years as president of the town board. He was keenly interested in education, and was instrumental in early procuring for the Jacksonville schools a plan and equipment which remained unexcelled in the state for many years. For 18 years he was a director on the Jacksonville school board. He served as a regent of the state university for 15 years. Far-visioned, he was the first man in Oregon to appreciate the value of good roads, with the result that Jackson County boasted the first paved unit of what is now known as the Pacific Highway. [Beyond a 1913 letter to the editor in support of its bonding, Beekman is not known to have had any association with the Pacific Highway.]
Race for Governor Made.
    In 1878, without the slightest effort on his part, he was selected by the Republican Party to represent it in the race for governor. Mr. Beekman was defeated by just 49 votes. [The margin is variously reported as 31, 41, 49, 69 and 76.]
    Mr. Beekman died February 22, 1915, at the age of 87. Up and down the West Coast he was mourned by friends, business associates and the community at large--Jacksonville's "Banker Beekman"--westerner of the old school, pioneer, builder, symbol of strength and integrity--"gone west."
    The mining industry in Jackson County, which for the preceding three years had been in the doldrums, was revived in 1860 by the discovery of quartz gold in a vein some ten miles west [sic] of Jacksonville, which later came to be known as Gold Hill. Hitherto Jackson County had been regarded as placer country. The excitement attendant upon the new discovery was increased tenfold when it became known that the local quartz leads were "spotted," that is, the gold-bearing quartz veins were not of uniform value throughout, but possessed the intriguing quality of widening unexpectedly into "pockets" or "lodes" of mushy quartz containing a very high percentage of free-milling gold.
    Among the younger generation whose blood was set tingling by the fever and romance of lode-hunting was a boy in his teens named Edward Schieffelin, destined to become one of the best-known characters in prospecting history. In Jackson County, where he early familiarized himself with the prospector's lore, Schieffelin was just "one of the boys," the son of a pioneer family. He left home, and when he returned many years later he was a famous personage, for during the interval of his absence he undertook a little prospecting in Arizona, venturing into virgin territory overrun by hostile Apaches.
    In addition to winning laurels as an Indian fighter, Schieffelin discovered the Lucky Cuss mine in 1877, which with other locations held by himself and associates formed the nucleus of the prodigiously wealthy Tombstone group, and gave rise to the founding of the town of Tombstone. [Schieffelin is remembered more for his careful avoidance of natives than for killing them.]
Large Fortune Amassed.
    Schieffelin amassed a considerable fortune in the Southwest. For a time he sought the amenities of city life, but the virus of the prospector was in his blood, and so he came back to the hills amid which he had spent his boyhood. It is generally supposed that when he returned to Jacksonville Schieffelin had lost all or the greater part of his fortune. History is full of incidents which prove that first and last a prospector's talents lie in discovering, not in keeping, wealth.
    Upon the occasion of his second sojourn in the Siskiyous Schieffelin and a Charley Meirs, or Mears, left Jacksonville, going over into Josephine County to prospect in the Cow Creek Canyon. Here Schieffelin died on May 14, 1896, and the circumstances surrounding his death leave Southern Oregon with a lost-mine mystery, without which no mining community can be said to have reached maturity.
    On the day of Schieffelin's death Mears had gone to town for supplies. When he returned in the evening he found Schieffelin sitting in the doorway of their cabin, his head leaning against the casing. He was dead. Beside him was a gold pan half full of coarse gold nuggets.
    It is generally supposed Schieffelin overexerted himself in climbing up the steep slope from the creekbed to the cabin and died of heart failure. The nature and quantity of the gold in the pan indicated a strike of major proportions. Mears searched far and wide for two years, but failed to discover the spot where Ed panned the morning of the day of his death. 
    There is a certain fitness in the manner in which Schieffelin, who more than any other man of his time viewed his calling in the light of a profession, passed on. He died with his boots on, and in his possession was proof that not once, but twice he had achieved the ultimate goal of every prospector--a big strike!
    The year 1862 witnessed the close of the quartz boom. Jacksonville gradually settled into the character of a prosperous little mining and agricultural town, the surrounding country regularly pouring a rich but ever-decreasing stream of gold into the vault of the Beekman Bank.
Many Calamities Strike.
    Despite its prosperity, Jacksonville was not spared the multitudinous calamities which visited most young western communities during some stage of their development. In 1868 a smallpox epidemic of unknown origin swept the town, taking 40 lives. A local savant ventured the opinion the smoke from burning pitch-pine knots would prevent the scourge from spreading, and for weeks the people of Jacksonville lived in a haze of smoke and dread, wondering who would be the next to be stricken, At night the fires glowed dully. A lumber wagon clattered through the streets, its driver ringing a little bell and, as in medieval times, intoning the grim summons, "Bring out your dead; bring out your dead." [The events of this last sentence are unrecorded anywhere else and contradict what is known of the treatment of the dead during the epidemic. It is an invention.]
    The following year a cloudburst dumped an immense volume of water into Jackson and Daisy creeks, precipitating a flood upon the town which destroyed a number of valuable properties and did incalculable damage to the placer workings located along the creek beds. Eighteen hundred seventy-three and the succeeding year both witnessed disastrous fires which wiped out considerable portions of the little town. Individual initiative and true western community spirit bore up bravely under each of these attacks, and Jacksonville emerged more substantial and better integrated because of them.
    Only a distant approximation can be made of the amount of mineral wealth yielded up by the hills and streams of Jackson County. There is no one living more capable of making an estimate than Benjamin Beekman, son of the late banker, at the present time a lawyer living in Portland. Mr. Beekman hazards the guess, based upon records in his possession and upon opinions vouchsafed by his father, that in all Jackson County has produced upward of $30,000,000 in gold, to say nothing of platinum, cinnabar and the rarer metals which have been mined in lesser quantities. The extent of mining operations in the Jacksonville district can be judged by the fact that during the first 30 years of its life some 5500 mining locations were made, and claims are still being filed on.
    Many are the tales of the old Jacksonville--tales of its prospectors, its gamblers; tales of hardships endured, of deprivations, want, stark starvation; tales of bad Indians and worse white men. And through these narratives runs a golden vein of humor. Those early pioneers were hardy stuff. They were optimists--energetic, self-reliant men and women. They were not easily cast down or turned from their purpose. They knew nothing of stock market crashes and industrial depressions. Had they lived with these phenomena they would have laughed at them. When a man had flour and salt--and a rifle--what more did he need? Gold? Gold was a game with them--win it and spend it. The fun was in working, in striving; in the zest of dangerous living. But the game counted, too. The glistening metal lured them on as it always has and always will lure the more adventurous spirits among mankind.
Oregonian, Portland, December 7, 1930, page 58





Last revised March 28, 2024