Lithia Plaza - Ashland, OR
N 42° 11.826 W 122° 42.924
10T E 523497 N 4671699
Lithia Plaza is known as the 'heart' of Ashland and located near where Ashland first began as a small town in the late 1800s and is mentioned in Oregon's American Guide Series.
Waymark Code: WMN8ZW
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 01/21/2015
Views: 2
Ashland is in a region of mineral springs; at the civic center is LITHIA PLAZA, in which are two fountains with copious flows of lithia water. One fountain, of bronze, has been dedicated to H. B. and H. H. Carter, early settlers, and is ornamented with the heroic-sized figure of a scout; the other fountain is of gray granite, quarried and polished nearby.
--- Oregon: End of the Trail, 1940
Amazingly, these two fountains still exist in this plaza, although this small lot has gone through a number of redevelopments over the decades to its current look. The fountains still produce the bubbly lithia water that flows out of nearby mineral springs. There is a red sign near the granite fountain that highlights the history of Ashland's lithia water:
Ashland Lithia Water
The Lithia Fountain was installed on the Ashland Plaza in late 1927. In the 1900s, Lithia Water, which comes from the Pompadour Chief Spring, nearly four miles east of downtown, was the focus of a city-wide development plan that hoped to transform Ashland into a mineral spring-based resort. Under the slogan "Ashland Grows While Lithia Flows," Ashland's citizens passed a $175,000 bond in 1914 to develop Litia Park and build a pump and distribution system for the highly mineralized water. Although the system was built, the plan largely fizzled, at least in part due to the use of wood stave piping which quickly became clogged by mineral build-up that restricted flow.
Interest in Lithia Water was revived in the 1920s when a local group sought permission to bottle the water for sale, a venture which had minimal success due to the water's pungent taste and aroma. In 1927 the Ashland Chamber of Commerce petitioned the City Council to make Lithia Water available on the Plaza. The Lithia Fountain, built of locally quarried Ashland Granite, was installed later that year.
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The two fountains in this plaza are two of three contributing structures within 'Plaza Island' that is part of the Ashland Downtown Historic District. If you're brave enough to taste the lithia water that flows out of the fountain, you'll most likely give a great repulsive look afterwards since this water smells like sulfur and tastes bitter and pungent.