The Fluhrer Bakery Building was constructed for John A. and William H. Fluhrer, father and son, in the fall of 1933. After the Jackson County Courthouse, built 1931-1932, it was the first major construction to occur in Medford, using local Works Progress Administration labor. The building was designed by noted Medford architect Frank Clark. The bakery manufactured and sold the first sliced bread in the region.
John Fluhrer was born in Germany in 1868. As a boy he apprenticed as a baker, and at age 15 he came to the United States. In 1898 he married Elizabeth Hoefer and their first child, William, was born in Trail, in 1899. The Fluhrer's operated bakeries at several other locations until growth of their company led to construction of this building in 1933. Shortly after completion of the building, John Fluhrer died at the age of 65. William H. Fluhrer became President of the company, later expanding operations to Klamath Falls, Oregon (1935), Eureka, California (1938), and Grants Pass, Oregon (1943). In August 1948, while hosting a gathering of political figures at his Lake of the Woods summer home, William Fluhrer's plane, which he was piloting, crashed into the lake, killing Fluhrer, State Representative Earle Johnson, H.H. Evans, Representative nominee, and Representative John R. Snellstrom.
In 1962 the baking operation was sold to a company in Stockton, California. It was later sold to Williams, Inc., of Eugene, Oregon, and the building was leased to Williams. Fifty years of baking bread in downtown Medford came to an end in July, 1972, when Williams closed the downtown baking plant and relocated its operations elsewhere in the city.
The building contains 40,000 square feet of space. The exterior has remained intact architecturally but the interior has experienced substantial change as the uses of the building shifted from bakery operations to other commercial and domestic purposes.
Information source: National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form
