Phoenix: Gasburg Rises Again
Near Ashland, Oregon
Before it had a proper name, the settlement along Bear Creek in the Rogue Valley was known locally as Gasburg, a nod to a talkative worker in the mill kitchen. Brothers Hiram and Samuel Colver took up Donation Land Claims here around eighteen fifty-one, and in eighteen fifty-four Samuel laid out a town site. The next year Milton Lindley cut timber for a blockhouse, and a flouring mill went up soon after.
When the town applied for a post office under the name Phoenix, the mythological bird apparently suited a settlement rising from the frontier. The city incorporated in nineteen ten. Today it sits just south of Medford on the Bear Creek corridor, part of the dense string of communities that the valley's climate and good soil attracted in the gold rush era.
