50@50 – Ashland OR
In my discussions of how land shapes culture and how culture in America reflects the landscape, I can’t help but start with Lewis and Clark. Their diaries, stories and illustrations, were fueled by the artists who traveled with them and, afterward, sealed the 19th century vision of the Northwest as an American Eden. For three weeks, I am exploring pockets of Oregon, Washington and Idaho through which that vision of Eden, the realities of the landscape and the values of its people, before and after the migration of Emigrants, manifests itself today.
Have you ever heard of the Oregon Gold Rush? Neither had I. It started in 1851 and a good portion of the gold was in Southern Oregon, in the Rogue River Area. Ashland was created, in part, because a couple of guys decided they’d get richer supplying the miners than being miners, and in 1891, a Gold Mine was discovered in the hills just west of Ashland itself. The tall trees provided accessible building material, and the abundant streams and wildlife sustained a growing population, just as it sustained the Native Takelma bands prior to their arrival. Ashland, sitting in a valley between the Siskiyou and Cascade Mountains, became a key stop between Portland and California.
In 1907, the legend of healing springs in the area was confirmed when a spring, presumably containing the second highest concentration of Lithium Oxide (the first is in Saratoga New York) in the country, was discovered a few miles to the east. Residents lobbied to establish Ashland as a mineral water resort, but this was short lived. One can still visit bathhouses or drink the mineral water from public fountains.
Today, with a population of 20,000 people, Ashland is considered as a cultural center nationally for theater, specifically Shakespeare. But how did this happen? Civic Leaders always envisioned Ashland as a place of culture, and endeavored to bring art and creative programs to the small city. In 1935, Angus Bowmer, an English professor, entreated the city to include a three-day festival of Shakespearean plays in the Elizabethan manner. The festival was so successful, that a more performances were scheduled for the next summer. Thus, slowly, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival came into being.
Ashland also provides one of the most accessible entries onto the Pacific Crest Trail. To do this entire trail is on my life list. One could encapsulate so much of the pacific states’ history, heritage and meaning from this trail. I stayed at the Mount Ashland Inn – the only lodge physically located on the PCT. There, I met a woman who is section hiking the entire trail by herself in three day segments! I hiked south from the inn, so I could hike downhill back! We only hiked a few miles, up and back, but it gave me an appreciation for the rugged, rocky terrain the emigrants of the Southern Oregon Trail traversed. But they sure did not have the level of clearing that one experiences on well used trails today. Bears are not uncommon on the PCT in Oregon; they enjoy the berries abundant in these woods. We missed one by a half mile, but a lot of others told us about it!