For many years, the prosperity of Ashland, Ore., like other Rogue Valley communities, depended on a booming timber industry for prosperity.
Pioneer Abel Helman operated Ashland’s first sawmill on Ashland Creek from 1852 to 1879. Over the years, a few steam-powered sawmills on Bear Creek tributaries provided lumber that built Jacksonville, Talent and Ashland.
In the early 20th century, new mills met a dramatically increased demand for lumber, but by the mid-1950s they began shutting down for lack of timber and competition from big corporations.
Ashland sawmills included Bill Beagle’s on North Mountain Avenue, which closed down in 1965. Its mill pond became a wetland and Riverwalk Park. John Cotton’s mill on Dead Indian Memorial Road closed in 1957, becoming a city yard for vehicle storage. Present-day Bi-Mart at the southwest end of town occupies property that was the site over time of several mills, including Fir Milling and Planing, the Moon Lumber Co., the Timber Products Co., and the Sugar Pine Lumber Co.
Lithia Lumber, Magnolia Lumber, and earlier, a fruit-box factory, occupied the present-day site of the Ashland Civic Center and Police Department site on East Main Street.
Tourism feeds Ashland’s economy today.
Source: "An Introduction to History of the Rogue Valley." North Mountain Park Nature Center Brochure. 3rd version, Ashland, Ore., Parks and Recreation Department, 2011, www.ashland.or.us/Files/History%20Background%20booklet.pdf. Accessed 18 July 2019.
