Ashland, Oregon - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

ASHLAND, 212.5 m. (1,900 alt., 4,544 pop.), lies at the southern extremity of the Rogue River Valley on the banks of Bear Creek which winds through the town. Southward the towering Siskiyous cut the horizon. Northward the broad reaches of the valley, checkered with pear and apple orchards, stretch away to the fretful waters of the Rogue River. The town was named in 1852 by Abel D. Hillman either for Ashland, Ohio, or for the birthplace of Henry Clay at Ashland, Virginia. The post office was first called Ashland Mills because of a grist mill here. The trade of farmers and orchardists and the handling of their products is the principal source of community revenue, though lumbering, mining, and the shipment of gray granite and white marble from nearby quarries add to the city's assets. The first marble works here were established in 1865.

--- Oregon: End of the Trail, 1940

Today, Ashland is known more as a tourist hotbed than for pears, apples and lumbering, which have all declined over the decades. There are still quarries around Ashland but they don't produce the granite and white marble to the level they once did. The biggest tourist draw to Ashland is the Shakespeare Festival and Lithia Park (both mentioned in the American Guide Series). There are also many niche shops and storefronts that cater to every shopping taste.

My posted coordinates place you in front of the City Hall across from Lithia Plaza (also mentioned in the American Guide Series), the 'heart' of Ashland and where the town became recognized for its lithia water that bubbles out of springs and flows down Ashland Creek in Lithia Park and near the site of Ashland's first grist mill