A Few Minutes with the Mayor – April 2020

Our twin-date movie nights at Old City Hall when we ran The Last of The Wild Horses, a 1948 film shot in Jacksonville and other parts of the Valley including the Rogue River, wound up being a great success. Reluctantly, we had to turn away fifty or sixty people over the two nights. Old City Hall was filled to capacity on the first evening. It was booked on the second evening, however there were eleven no-shows. I have promised all those turned away that we will run this film once more later this year. The date will be announced in this column well in advance. I am told that after we ran The Last of The Wild Horses, Charter Channel 187 ran a decent print one night. So those of you who missed it might keep an eye out for it if you have Charter.

I want to publicly thank two people without whose help this film could not have been shown. First is Tom Glover, Jacksonville’s Building Maintenance Supervisor, who discovered the film on the Mystery Science Theater Cable Channel. It was as bad a print as I’ve ever seen but one look told me to find this film for our movie nights.

The second person is Jeff Alvis, our City Administrator, who brought high performance speakers to temporarily replace the ones in Old City Hall. The Last of The Wild Horses, even though not a major studio production, had extensive musical background sequences throughout the film. This gave it more of the feel and sound of a Hollywood “A” production than it might otherwise have had. However, it also presented problems when using the “house” speakers. The replacements saved the day.

I am pleased to relate that an electronic copy of this film has been placed in City archives because of the film’s historical significance.

Personally speaking, one of the film’s highlights comes right in the beginning with a shot of the barbershop on California Street. The scene dissolves into an earlier time where there are no automobiles. Of course, the barbershop is still there. That is accurate historically because that barbershop has been there since the nineteenth century. On a personal note, this reminded me of another barbershop, one I literally grew up in—my dad’s shop. Set right in the heart of the Upper West Side, not far from the American Museum of Natural History and Lincoln Center, Dad opened his shop sometime in the middle 1930s. Amazingly, it’s still a barbershop… approximately 85 years later. Not one other single store in either direction exists from those early days.

Unlike Jacksonville, if one is seeking historical sites in New York City, one has to trudge around visiting national monuments like Grant’s Tomb, though there is the occasional Tavern, like Fraunces, one of the few places actually older than our Brunner Building. Constructed in 1855, the Brunner Building is the oldest brick building in the state. I have been approached by many people suggesting the Brunner Building be made into a museum. Such a use certainly befits its historic significance. Currently, the Jacksonville seniors operate the thrift store there.

Most of us living in Jacksonville understand and appreciate the history of our little town. Like the barbershop, and much of the main street frozen in time, it is one of the few remaining western towns looking just as it did in The Last of The Wild Horses. That was 72 years ago. We appreciate how it provides a visual account of Jacksonville’s past. I, for one, cannot forget the struggle of so many traveling across a continent to reach this place with many dying along the way. For example, one such pioneer was Gabriel Plymale, who never saw Jacksonville, dying within days of reaching the town. His widow’s home that we call “Plymale Cottage,” was built in 1865, and stands across the street from the Post Office. I wonder how many towns still hold their city council meetings in buildings as old as our Old City Hall. Built in 1881, it served as the sheriff’s office in The Last of The Wild Horses. You can even stand right where the actor stood in front of the camera. Now I call that nifty.