Located in the heart of Riverside Park are a few memorials and plaques dedicated to men and women of various wars. Also located here is a memorial rose garden, memorial flagpole and this gazebo. There is a plaque located next to this gazebo that notes its significance and reads:
JULY 4, 1984BUILT THROUGH THE GENEROSITY
OF THE PEOPLE OF GRANTS PASS
TO COMMEMORATE THE CITY'S CENTENNIAL
GRANTS PASS ZONTA INTERNATIONAL * JOHN & SYLVIA VOORHIES * ROY PALMER * JOSEPHINE COUNTY SHERIFF'S MOUNTED POSSE AUXILIARY * JACK JAVENS * ESTHER PLATT BRISTOL * GRANTS PASS NEW CAR DEALERS ASSOC. * ROGUE VALLEY TREES, INC. * H. H. "BUCK" RIGHTMIER * GENE & JEAN BROWN * WES CONNOLLY MEMORIAL FUND * CAVEMAN KIWANIS CLUB * GEORGE WALKER * BOB & HAZEL STALCUP * INDIAN MARY TOASTMISTRESS CLUB * RON CLISBY * RICHARD & LETTY HICKS * NORTH MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT COUNCIL * B.P.D. ELKS NO. 1584 * CAROLYN & MICHAEL CASEY * JOHN & JEAN ROGNAAS * DEPRESSION CLASSES OF 1932-1935 * FAMILY OF GEORGE & HAZEL BARTON * JOSEPHINE COUNTY REPUBLICAN WOMEN * CONDRAY INVESTMENT CORP. * GRANTS PASS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT BODY * GRANTS PASS ACTIVE CLUB * LLOYD HOLMGREN & CARL ENERSON * GOLDEN RULE LODGE NO. 78 I.O.O.F. * CHARLES & MIRIAM MORRISON * JOHN & PENNY VAAGEN * FRANCES RECTOR * GRANTS PASS ROTARY CLUB * JOSEPHINE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY * DELMA JEAN JONES KLASSEN * STINEBAUGH FAMILY * JEROME BEARDSLEY * GLADYS & RUSSELL TOTMAN * SUSAN LIVINGSTON LEO * LUCILLE McGREGOR-PLAZA SEWING CENTER * RUSSELL & EONA BLACKSMITH * MILDRED WALKER * WES & MARGARET VAN DE WARKER * DEWAYNE & MARJORIE SPICKLER * ROBERT & VIVIAN FITZWATER * RICHARD & LAVERNE CAMPBELL * ETNA REBEKAH LODGE NO. 49 * KATHLEEN & DAVID OEHLING * ROGUE RIVER VALLEY GRANGE
The following verbiage is taken from Grants Pass' tourism website (link below) to describe its history and reads:
Like many towns, Grants Pass owes its existence and growth to the railroad. When the tracks were extended into the modest settlement around 1880, things starting hopping.
Suddenly, the center of activity shifted from the western part of Josephine County, with its mining, to the east and Grants Pass. The first downtown building was constructed in 1883. In 1885, Grants Pass won an election to be the new seat of Josephine County. Grants Pass beat out Kerbyville (now Kerby) and Wilderville for the honor. The county’s first courthouse went up in Grants Pass in 1886.
The city was a bustling frontier town with dirt streets, hotels and lots of saloons. It gradually matured and grew, adding banks, schools, varied stores and even an opera house.
If the town had any one unique characteristic though the years, it was the signs built over the streets to advertise its virtues. These started as cloth signs before the turn of the century and exist as the lighted “It’s the Climate” sign today.
New industries have regularly burst on the scene in Josephine County – one at a time.
While pioneers set down roots and homesteaded, the first real industrialists came in search of gold. Mining quite simply made the county happen. Gold was founded by ex-sailors in present-day Waldo and at the same time by the Rollins party on Josephine Creek. Then the rush was on!
Men flooded north from California to pan for gold in creeks, sift through mud in sluice boxes and to later use large hydraulic works to find it.
The county’s timber was a useful resource from the beginning – if only to supply logs for cabins and firewood to keep the chill off. Once the easy gold was gone and even the Chinese miners had moved on, the county needed something else to survive. Lumber was that something.
The trees began to fall. Mills large and small popped up around the county, but especially in Grants Pass, where the railroad stopped. They turned out wood products of all kinds – from boxes to window sashes to planks. Like the occasional mine found up Creekside Road today, the mills are also still working. The log yards are full of pyramids of trees – but not like it used to be.
All along, of course, there were farms and dairies. Local growers tried various products, including vineyards and hops – both of which became less profitable once Prohibition began. For a while the county was a major U.S. producer of gladiola bulbs.
Meanwhile, people began to realize that tourism was an industry itself. As the other industries lost some of their muscle, this new idea continues to take hold.
What the above verbiage failed to mention was how Grants Pass got its name. The city name was selected to honor General Ulysses S. Grant's success at Vicksburg. Grants Pass post office was established on March 22, 1865. The city of Grants Pass was incorporated in 1887, a year after it had become the county seat.