History of Grants Pass, Oregon
Like many towns, Grants Pass owes its existence and growth to the railroad. When the tracks were extended into the modest settlement around 1880, things starting hopping.
Suddenly, the center of activity shifted from the western part of Josephine County, with its mining, to the east and Grants Pass. The first downtown building was constructed in 1883. In 1885, Grants Pass won an election to be the new seat of Josephine County. Grants Pass beat out Kerbyville (now Kerby) and Wilderville for the honor. The county’s first courthouse went up in Grants Pass in 1886.
The city was a bustling frontier town with dirt streets, hotels and lots of saloons. It gradually matured and grew, adding banks, schools, varied stores and even an opera house.
If the town had any one unique characteristic though the years, it was the signs built over the streets to advertise its virtues. These started as cloth signs before the turn of the century and exist as the lighted “It’s the Climate” sign today.
New industries have regularly burst on the scene in Josephine County – one at a time.
While pioneers set down roots and home steaded, the first real industrialists came in search of gold. Mining quite simply made the county happen. Gold was founded by ex-sailors in present-day Waldo and at nearly the same time by the Rollins party on Josephine Creek. And the rush was on.
Men flooded north from California to pan for gold in creeks, sift through mud in sluice boxes and to later use large hydraulic works to find it.
The county’s timber was a useful resource from the beginning – if only to supply logs for cabins and firewood to keep the chill of. But once the easy gold was gone and even the Chinese miners had moved on, the county needed something else to survive. Lumber was that something.
The trees began to fall. Mills large and small popped up around the county, but especially in Grants Pass, where the railroad stopped. They turned out wood products of all kinds – from boxes to window sashes to planks. Like the occasional mine found up creek side road today, the mills are also still working. The log yards are full of pyramids of trees – but not like it used to be.
All along, of course, there were farms and dairies. Local growers tried various products, including vineyards and hops – both of which became less profitable once Prohibition began. And for a while, the county was a major U.S. producer of gladiola bulbs.
Meanwhile, people began to realize that tourism was an industry itself. And as the other industries lost some of their muscle, this new idea continues to take hold.