Pioneer Profiles – Dec 2024/Jan 2025

HISTORIC JACKSONVILLE, INC. is in the holiday spirit, which does tend to include some holiday spirits, so stories of beer, whiskey, and early Jacksonville saloons is the subject of this month’s Pioneer Profile. Gold rush Jacksonville became known as “saloon city,” reputedly having as many as 36 saloons. Keep in mind that if a merchant sold liquor, he might be considered a “saloon” and for years the Jacksonville Town Council regularly issued liquor licenses because that was their main source of revenue. But to begin at the beginning….

James Clugage and James Poole, two “packers” carrying supplies from the Willamette Valley to the gold fields in Northern California, stopped overnight in the Rogue Valley in February 1852. Learning of a gold discovery from the local Indian Agent, they tried a little “panning” and found gold in Daisy or Jackson Creek. Clugage leaked word of their claim, and an “eruption of miners” rushed to the Rogue Valley. By summer, over 3,000 prospectors were claiming and excavating every creek bed in the region.

“Entrepreneurs” were close on their heels, and within two months, Appler & Kenney, packers from Yreka, had opened a tent trading post catering to the miners and the settlers who soon followed. Appler & Kenney’s “bazaar” was located approximately where Happy Alpaca now stands at the corner of California and Oregon streets. It maintained a minimal stock of tools, clothing and tobacco, and a liberal supply of whiskey per A.G. Walling’s History of Southern Oregon, “not royal nectar, perhaps, but nevertheless the solace of the miner in heat and cold, in prosperity or in adversity.”

W.W. Fowler constructed the community’s first building near the head of Main, the only street in the embryo city. It was a canvass-topped log house, probably a store or saloon. Mining camps tended to last only as long as the promise of gold so it’s unlikely Fowler would have invested that kind of money in a place to live.

According to Walling, “Saloons [soon] multiplied beyond necessity; monte and faro games were in full blast, and the strains of music lured the ‘honest miner’ and led his feet into many a dangerous place, where he and his money were soon parted.” Miller’s & Wills’ “round tent” became the miners’ destination of choice on any Sunday, their “day of rest.” The tent was a combination of saloon and gambling hall. Monte was the principal game dealt. It was easily understood and patronized by seventy-five percent of the population.

With the influx of miners, a marked change also took place in the social structure as gamblers, courtesans, and con men of every kind followed—“the class that struck prosperous mining camps like a blight.” Their favorite place of activity was one of the most notorious landmarks in the early mining community—the El Dorado Saloon. By late spring or summer, this wooden structure occupied the current site of the Masonic Hall at the corner of California and Oregon streets. It fronted on Oregon and extended 100 feet along California Street. Stories of murders, prostitution, gambling, theft, and the like surround the El Dorado until its demise by fire in 1874.

Flanking the El Dorado was a conglomeration of wooden frame buildings including an express office, a cigar and tobacco shop, a barber shop, a “house” of unidentified use, and a bakery. By the mid-1850s, the Table Rock Bakery not only sold baked goods but also provided space for a butcher shop, groceries, and supplies. In October 1858, when German-born Herman von Helms bought out the owners, the bakery began advertising “The Bar” stocked with a choice lot of liquors, wines, and wholesome lager beer. Two years later, Von Helms and his partner, John Wintjen, razed their old wooden building and constructed the brick Table Rock Saloon.

The saloon was also Jacksonville’s first museum. Von Helms collected fossils and oddities to attract a clientele that stayed for his lager. For many years the saloon functioned as an informal social and political headquarters, home to business deals, court decisions, and even trials. It still serves social, political, and business gatherings as the GoodBean coffee shop.

Across Oregon, where the Orth Building now stands, there were at least two more saloons. The Palmetto Bowling Saloon was in operation no later than 1853, providing weary prospectors with a lively combination of recreation and relaxation. It was sold in November of that year along with its assemblage of mirrors, tables, benches, lamps, decanter, and stove and renamed the New England Bowling Saloon.

Neighboring it was the two-story Classical Revival-style Holman House, later renamed the Beard House. Supposedly built in 1852, it also housed the original Eagle Brewery, later renamed the City Brewery and operated by Viet Schutz, one of the many German-speaking settlers. Lodged somewhere in the midst of this high-spirited atmosphere was an old hospital building and physician’s and surgeon’s office. Given that most medicines of the time tended to have high concentrations of alcohol, opium, or cocaine, they should have fit right in.

However, by 1856 Viet Schutz had constructed the largest brewery in Jacksonville on west California Street just below the current Britt Gardens. In addition to the brewery, it featured a bar and elaborate dance hall. In 1874, prominent attorney Colonel Robert Aubrey Miller wrote the following:

Oh! Dear Walter, I like to recall

The pleasure we had at Viet Schutz hall.

The fun that we had I’ll never forget

Nor will I ever those days regret….

A second Eagle Brewery named after its predecessor was in operation as early as 1856 two blocks south on Oregon Street. Joseph Wetterer, a native of Baden, Germany, had acquired the property and by 1857 added the Eagle Saloon. And in existence no later than the Eagle Saloon was the New State Billiard and Drinking Saloon, a long-lived Jacksonville drinking establishment located for many years at the corner of California and South 3rd streets where Redmen’s Hall now stands.

By 1858, the Franco-American Hotel was operating at the southeast corner of Oregon and Main streets where the Jacksonville Inn cottages are now located. It soon became the leading hotel, bar, and stage stop in Jacksonville, noted for its “table d’hôte.” It attracted a regular clientele of miners, residents, and travelers. It was one of many hotels, and virtually every hotel had a bar.

In 1863, when Cornelius Beekman moved his banking and express office to the northwest corner of California and 3rd streets, the Express Saloon then occupied Beekman’s former location at the intersection’s southeast corner. The saloon closed in 1868 but was soon replaced by another saloon, the Pioneer Bit House. Following the 1874 fire that destroyed much of the south side of California Street, another saloon and variety store occupied the space.

From 1864 to 1871 a saloon known as the Bella Union existed on the site of the current Bella Union Restaurant and Saloon. Operated by Prussian native Henry Breitbarth, it offered its customers billiards and liquors.

By the 1890s, the building currently housing Happy Alpaca at the corner of California and North Oregon was home to the Marble Corner Saloon, presumably named for the marble factory located across Oregon Street at the time. Featuring a marble-tiled entry, the saloon served city patrons until well into the 20th Century.

Other saloons, bars, and breweries have come and gone, and we haven’t even mentioned all the vineyards and wineries that found the micro-climes of the Rogue Valley conducive to grapes and winemaking. The 1919 Volstead Act, “Prohibition,” essentially killed them all…until Frank Wisnovsky recognized the Valley’s potential, researched its “spirited history,” and established Valley View Winery in 1972.

Jacksonville may no longer be nicknamed “saloon city,” but one could certainly call it “high spirited,” what with wine and beer tasting rooms, most restaurants having a bar or liquor license, and the abundance of nearby wineries. The town is also a gateway to what has become an internationally recognized wine region.

It seems “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” so Historic Jacksonville, Inc. is wishing you the spirit (or “spirits”) of the season!

Featured image: Civil War soldiers drinking beer (1863) probably in the Eagle Saloon in Jacksonville. This is the oldest known photo of people in Oregon drinking beer.

Pioneer Profiles is a project of Historic Jacksonville, Inc. Visit us at www.historicjacksonville.org and follow us on Facebook (historicjville) or Instagram (historicjacksonville) for upcoming events and more Jacksonville history.