Jacksonville, Oregon - Preserved Gold Rush Town

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Jacksonville, Oregon may have a long history dating back to the Old West, but I wouldn’t describe it as a “ghost” town. Though the population of the small town is listed at slightly over 2,800 people, it is a very popular place to visit! We arrived on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and were surprised that there were already lots of people walking the sidewalks of Main Street.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLwL5djh7-k

It is truly amazing to see how many buildings that line Main Streets and the side streets connected to it are from the 1850s through the 1880s.

Of course, most of the old buildings now have new businesses currently occupying them. But each building does have a sign that shows what year the building was made and what business occupied it at the time.

[82_28]

Good shit again, Rob! Love it. It might make you want to see this which came to mind.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... d-seattle/

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Thanks 82_28! Yeah, I-5, actually the whole Eisenhower interstate freeway project, did create more driving convenience but tore up a whole lotta neighborhoods too. Then again, I was just on I-5 in Seattle several months ago and the traffic jam looked a whole lot worse than it did in that picture. Sometimes the concept of convenience is relative.

[stillrobertpaulsen]

A Visit to the Past - Oregon's Historical Jacksonville Cemetery


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW8nP7UL3AI

I think what Neek and I really appreciated about the place was how it imparts a sense of history on a quieter more personal level. Reading about these people, when they lived, how they died, you do get a more intimate sense of the struggles they went through in the Old West, but also the feeling that their lives mattered; their struggles built a great town that’s still great today. Visiting a cemetery can be a somber occasion, but for us it was a wonderfully inspiring complement to our journey through Jacksonville.