 There's history here. And here. There's history there. History is everywhere. Welcome to the Southern Oregon History Show. Our show features historical museums and societies from throughout Jackson County. My name is Amy Drake, Exhibition's Curator for the Southern Oregon Historical Society and your host for today's show. With me today is Caroline Kingsnorth, President of Historic Jacksonville. Welcome, Caroline. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Yeah, thanks for coming. I'm glad that you're dressed a little unusually today. Well, I'm in costume. Yes. Shall I stand up here? Sure. Yes. I am wearing a Victorian costume, probably upper-middle class, from about the mid-1890s. And it has the leg of mutton sleeves. These actually became popular in the 1830s when Queen Victoria first came on the throne. But the fashion was revived in the mid-1890s. And that was when Jacksonville was still very much at its heyday. So I thought I would dress appropriately. It's a great choice. Yes. So you said Jacksonville was at its heyday when this was in style. Right. How does this relate to Historic Jacksonville and what you do with Historic Jacksonville? Well, what we're trying to do, that there's a long story. Shall we start at the beginning? Yes, please. All right, we'll start at the beginning. Everybody knows Jacksonville or associates Jacksonville with the first place goal was discovered in Southern Oregon. Right. That's true. It had been found before at Sailor's Diggings. Where is that? It's actually over in the Alinae Valley, where it's called that because Sailor's jumped ship and took to mine for gold. And the ones that are associated with Jacksonville are James Cluggage and James Poole. But they're really not the ones who found the gold either. The first goal in Jacksonville was actually found, we think, was found by two gentlemen. One was a Mr. Skinner and one was a Mr. Sykes. And Sykes was a handyman who worked for the Indian agent, Skinner, the Skinner who was involved was actually the Indian agent's son. And they found gold along Jackson Creek. And as it happens, Poole and Cluggage were packers and they brought goods from Sailor Morgan City down to Crescent City and they spent the night with the Indian agent and that's where they heard about gold. And so they decided they would try their luck. And you have different versions, whether the mule stepped in it and they found it in his hoof, whether they panned for it, found a little color. But anyway, they found gold. So while they're probably not the ones who discovered it, what they did do was they went down to Wairika, which was where the assay office was, and they filed land claims. And they filed land claims for all of the downtown Jacksonville. And then they did something very unusual because usually the gold miners, they didn't want to let on where their claims were. Right. You know, we won't protect these. Protect these. Yes. Well, Cluggage is actually the one who did it. He publicized it. He was saying, we're taking $70,000 worth of gold out of here, which brought everybody there. But what he was, he became the first real estate speculator. So he was really the real estate muggle. So he did that. He sold off all of his land. And that's really where he probably made as much money as anything. And then, of course, with the miners, then you also had the farmers coming because you had donation land claims that the federal government was giving, where you could get 160 acres of free land if you were single, 320 if you were married, as long as you lived on it and farmed it for, I think it was five years. And so you had the farmers coming because the Rogue Valley was so fertile. And then with the miners and the farmers there, you had the merchants. So, of course, the merchants came because they had to provide the supplies. And Jacksonville became, at one time, we don't know whether it was the largest or the second largest city in the state of Oregon. And it was certainly the largest in southern Oregon. And it was really the hub of commerce there. And it was also the county seat. And so Jacksonville was where everything happened until the railroad came. And when was that? The railroad came in the actually mid to late 1880s. And everybody assumed, of course, the railroad was going to come through Jacksonville. Right, if it was the county seat. It's the county seat. It's the biggest town. Of course, it's going to come through Jacksonville. Not taking into account the grade, it would have to do so. So it just made a lot more sense to go through the Flat Valley floor. And so when they ran the railroad through the Flat Valley floor, that's when Medford began. And so that's how Medford, and as the railroad bypassed Jacksonville, the merchants, the others, they moved over to Medford. That became more the focus. There was a spur line, right? There was a spur railroad, Jacksonville. The residents, you know, we said, we can't be left out of this. And so they raised the money to build a spur railroad connecting Jacksonville to Medford. And the idea and the concept worked very well, but they never had an engine that was powerful enough. Oh. And yeah. The little engine that tried. The little engine that tried. I'm not sure it ever could. It's actually, they've called it various times, the tea kettle, the popcorn popper. But we have the engine now back in Jacksonville. Really? It's over at Bigham Knoll. Yes. The Ashlands who own Bigham Knoll, they bought the engine and they brought it back and put tracks down along where some of the original tracks were. Oh, wow. Yes. So the engine is there. So is that related to what historic Jacksonville does? Well, in a way it is, because what we're doing when the railroad bypassed Jacksonville, Jacksonville came back water. And as a result, that's why all of the historic buildings are still there. Oh, okay. Because they weren't torn down. And then they were going to try to run the state highway through there. A group of people said, whoa, you can't do this because they're going to take out 11 historic buildings. And so that was when the local government... Sorry, and they built the highway which year? Which years? The highway was 1963, I believe, or 6163. And so they said, basically the ODOT, the Oregon Department of Transportation, said, that's fine. You've got them. Now what are you going to do with them? And so they established the National Historic Landmark District. So we have all of these wonderful buildings. There are over 100 historic buildings in the district. Jacksonville is beautiful. It is. You know, it's got commercial buildings, residences, churches, government buildings, they're all part of it. But the problem is, without activities that are take part there, they're just old buildings. And so historic Jacksonville was formed actually after the city was given five of the historic buildings previously owned by the county. And those were the courthouse, the historic jail, the Beekman House, the Beekman Bank, and the Catholic Rectory. And so the city was not really in a position to do things with them other than to maintain them. And as we said, otherwise they're just old buildings. So historic Jacksonville was formed actually January a year ago in 2014 to create activities, events, programming that would bring the buildings to life and allow us to share them with the public. So that's what historic Jacksonville does. Call us queer event planners. What kind of event planning do you do? What kind of programs and activities? What are we doing? Currently we do programs, programming primarily at the Beekman House. And that is this fabulous historic residence built in 1873 by probably, probably the most prominent and wealthiest man in Jacksonville, Cornelius Beekman. And we do Victorian themed tours on the second Saturday of the month from May through September. They're part of what we call Jacksonville History Saturday. And we do them also in conjunction with the Friends of Jacksonville Historic Cemetery on that day. They have cemetery tours. We have the Beekman Bank open for tours. And we have Victorian themed tours at the house. And what we do is we look at a different aspect of Victorian life each month through the lens of Jacksonville and the Beekman family. So we might look at things like architecture, our hobbies and crafts, medical practices, Victorian etiquette, travel in the Victorian age, all of these different aspects. And we're also going to the first weekend in October, the whole Saturday and Sunday, we're going to be doing Victorian warning rituals. So we're going to be talking about death practices during the Victorian era, again at the Beekman House. Very theme-appropriate. Very theme-appropriate. And of course, the whole month of December, every weekend, we do Victorian Christmas. What is that like? Well, it's a lot of fun because Jacksonville was settled by people from all over the world really, you know, who had either immigrated to the U.S. and then came here or immigrated directly. They brought their customs with them and their ways of celebrating Christmas. And they're all sort of incorporated now into how we celebrate Christmas. So we talk about how the Beekman celebrated, but we also talk about where all of our different Christmas customs come from. Oh, that's really fun. It is. It's a lot of fun. And the last weekend, what we do it, is we do it as Boxing Day. And that's an old Victorian Christmas custom, which was the day after Christmas, the servants got the day off and that was when the families would usually give them their gifts and also allow them to take leftovers home to their families. So we do it as a donation weekend for access. So if you bring a canned good, you get in free. If you bring, if you do a play, pay the regular price, then we will donate the difference between $2 and the regular price to access. So it's a way again of giving back. That's really great. So it's something fun. You brought, speaking of food, you brought a food related item with you today. Yes, I did. Well, I said, what I did, we were talking about Victorian Christmas. And one of the things we do for Victorian Christmas is we give everyone a sugar cookie. Why a sugar cookie? Well, these are not, Mrs. Beekman made sugar cookies. And that was just something she did at Christmas and would give to the children in the neighborhood and whatnot. And we actually use Mrs. Beekman's recipe. And so we give sugar cookies. These are not, this is not her recipe. I cheated this morning. But so this is just another way of sharing history. What's special about her recipe? Well, it's because it was hers. And that's something that's unique about the Beekman House and the Beekman Bank. The Beekman House built in 1873. It's fairly unpretentious because it was still the era when modesty was the order of the day. This was before the, if you got it, flaunted of the later 1890s. Before your costume. Before my costume, yes. But it was owned by the only one family, lived in by only the one family. And it is still completely furnished with family artifacts, which is a rarity. Most historic homes you visit are furnished with period pieces. And this is all family artifacts. And the Beekman Bank. It's one of the very few that we have in Southern Oregon like that, too. The only other one is Hanley Farm, which of course the Southern Oregon Historical Society owns. And the Beekman Bank is like that as well, at least all the Bacchina counterpart. Because when Beekman closed his bank in 1915, he simply locked the door. And in his will, he decreed in his will that it would be maintained as a museum. And it has been intact just the way Beekman left it ever since 1915. So we have those bank tours as well on that second Saturday of the month between May and September. And so, you're obviously very involved with historic Jacksonville. Yes. How did you become involved with it? Well, I am, like most of the people who are involved with it, we have been involved with previous organizations that had been doing things with these buildings. Southern Oregon Historical Society, Jacksonville Heritage Society, other groups. And when the city took over the buildings, again, they were not in a position to do events or activities there. And we also know that all buildings need maintenance. So the idea of doing events could also be a way of providing some additional funding toward the preserving of these buildings. So it's one of these things where the city can do some things that we cannot. But as a nonprofit, we can do some things that the city cannot. So it's a nice partnership. And we also partner with other organizations, definitely with Southern Oregon Historical Society because you own all the artifacts that are in the Beekman House in the Beekman Bank. We also partner with the Chamber of Commerce. We partner with the Friends of the Cemetery, Jacksonville Boosters Club. They're going to be repainting the picket fence around the Beekman House. We've partnered with the Rotary, Dave Dunn Roof Repair and Painting there. Wow. It's a real community effort. It is definitely a community effort. That's great. Because it's something special in the community. We no longer have the Jacksonville Museum and people say, so when are you going to open a museum? We hear that question too. And I keep saying, we have a museum. We have two museums. They're called the Beekman House and the Beekman Bank. And they are completely furnished with artifacts. And it's a wonderful experience for people to come and see. The thing I forgot to mention is on third Saturdays, again between May and September, we do 1932 Living History. So what does that mean? What it means is we take you back to 1932. Julia Beekman, who was Cornelius's wife. She has now passed away. And the children, Carrie has moved to Portland, but Ben and Carrie are closing up the house. And they are going through, they're commenting on current affairs. They are reminiscing about growing up in the 1800s. And you are invited to visit. Oh, wow. So you can meet the children, Ben and Carrie Beekman. You can meet their former housekeeper, Louise Meneer, who's gone over to help out for the day. And then there comes their cousin, Luluyant. Lynn comes down from Portland with them. And so they're all there. And you get to interact with the characters and learn about what life was like in Jacksonville in 1932. Wow. And some other things we're doing, we're always looking for ways to share Jacksonville. And so one of the things we do is what we call Jacksonville History Trivia Tuesday. Okay. And so every Tuesday we post on Facebook just a little nugget of Jacksonville history with some then and now photos. And it's just a way to just give little snippets to share snippets of history with people. They're fun. To tell the stories. Because I think for me, Amy, one of the big things was when I was growing up, the way history was taught, it was taught. Its names, dates, and places. Right. And you regurgitate it. Very textbook, very dull, very boring. And very boring. And that's why most people don't like history. But that's not what history is. Exactly. History is the people and their stories. And that's what we're trying to bring to life. And the complicated parts of those stories too, and how the people came together. Yes. Yeah. I'm so glad that you're doing this. Well, we're exciting it. We're loving it. We're looking for ways to expand. We are doing, we have some historic objects that we're now offering. We partner with merchants in town. And if you can identify how this object was used, then you're entered in a shopping for some prizes. They are a gift certificate from one of the merchants. Uh-huh. So we have those on a monthly basis. Can you give us an example of one from the past? One we had was, what do we have? Oh, we had darning eggs. So what are those? Well, they look like eggs on sticks. Okay. And some people still use them. What they were used is when you didn't throw away your clothes, they got by new clothes every season, they were really used to repair socks. And you would stretch the fabric over the egg to hold it taut while you carefully made, we stitched the holes in your socks. And some knitters still use them today. Uh-huh. So that was one we had recently. That's fine. So they're fun. They have these strange objects. It's like, what is that? What was it used for? So we're also looking at ways, more things we can do. Things that we have are planning, have on the horizon. We're planning haunted history walking tours. What is that? Well, Jacksonville has a number of ghost and ghost stories. So we're going to try to see if we can pull those together and we're sharing those. Can you give us an example of one of the ghost stories? One of the ghost stories, Colvig House, which probably is not going to be on the tour because it's a little far to walk. But it was originally the town of George Shump, who was a town barber. And his wife died there in childbirth. And so we think that that's who the ghost is. The present owners have seen her. They've actually seen her walking through the house at like two o'clock in the morning. And a lot of their visitors experience her sitting on their bedside and sort of just looking out for them, taking care of them. She's a very benign ghost. There's another one I know of that in the house that was a doctor's son who died from one of the epidemics. And when someone I know was moving in, she had left a box of toys upstairs, still packed. And when she got up the next morning, all the toys were strewn on the floor. And he loves the light switches. He likes to run up and down the stairs turning on and off the light switches. So we know of these, and there are many more. We know Chinese ghost. There are many stories like that to share. How to be a really fun, haunted walk. That will be fun. We're also looking at doing what we're calling Hike at Rich of Woodlands Hiking Trail Tours along where some of the gold mining was done. So there are a couple of possibilities. One is along Jackson Creek, which is where Sykes probably found the gold. Now there's a rich gulch area where there are a lot of the glory holes reminding it again later in the 30s. So we're looking at doing again so we can bring in the Jacksonville Woodlands Association as well as partners. So part of it is to get as many of the community involved as we can for them to understand that this is their history. And they own it. And that we need to keep it alive. So there's a lot happening with Historic Jacksonville. Are you volunteer run? Who is doing this work? We're all volunteers. The board is board volunteers and all of our docent's are volunteers and we're always looking for more volunteers. Anyone want to volunteer? Actually all we have to do is go to our website. It has all the contact information. The website is www.HistoricJacksonville.org That should be easy to remember. Easy enough to remember. And we're always looking for volunteers docent's because we want to be able to expand what we're doing as well. Do you have any grand plans for the future? I think if we can get these extra tours going grand plan would be to have the house in the bank open more often to actually be able to do a Thursday through Monday offering but that's going to take a lot of people some money. I don't know that it could be done on an all volunteer basis so that's something we have to look at and look into. In the meantime what we're doing some of the funds that we're using goes back into the preservation and maintenance of these buildings. So that's again part of our goal. We have time for one last question with Carolyn. Carolyn what's your favorite part about working with Historic Jacksonville? Well it has a lot to do my background is this writer and so I get to write the scripts so I have fun I get to create a lot of these events so I get to do the research because I was a history major so it lets me go back and dabble in my major and again it gives me an outlet for sharing it and I'm always learning something more about Jacksonville, about southern Oregon and about the era in which we're really focusing on so for me it's a great outlet and a way I love spending my time. It sounds like a great opportunity for you. That's about it for today. I'd like to thank today's guest Carolyn Kingsnorth, president of Historic Jacksonville and I'd like to invite all of you to stop by Historic Jacksonville and their events and to enjoy more of southern Oregon's rich history and see some amazing things. Southern Oregon Historical Society's research library is in downtown Medford on Wednesday through Friday, noon to 4pm and on 4th Saturdays from noon to 2pm. We also have amazing events out at Hanley Farm. Check out our website for updated event information. The Southern Oregon History Show is sponsored by the Southern Oregon Historical Society and Jackson County Library Services. We'd like to thank our sponsors our volunteer crew and RVTV. Join us next time for another episode of the Southern Oregon History Show. Thank you.