Located in Croxton Memorial Park is a large, concrete circle with a number of headstones imbedded in concrete. There are also two plaques that note the names of 90 individuals interred here. This park was once a cemetery for many years but neglect and vandalism forced the city to convert this lot into a city park in 1975. The headstones of the surviving graves were imbedded in concrete to prevent further vandalism and damage.
One of the graves imbedded in concrete is of Benjamin Harrison Baird who was unfortunately killed by a grizzly bear. I located a newspaper article on FindaGrave.com which highlights this poor man's demise and reads:
KILLED BY A GRIZZLY.
Mr. B. H. Baird, of Jackson county, Oregon, was killed by a grizzly bear, while out deerhunting on Grave Creek. The following particulars are from the "Sentinel."On the morning of the 27th of October about sunrise, Mr. Baird started in pursuit of game, taking his faithful dog Rover with him. He proceeded about one mile and a half, when his dog layed three grizzly bears in their bed. Mr. Baird got within fifteen yards of them and shot the largest one, only wounding it. The bears pitched at Mr. Baird, who ran about two hundred yards, when the bear caught him and knocked his gun about sixteen feet from him. Getting loose from the bear, he sprang to the limb of a tree, the bear passing under and hitting his feet went a short distance down the hill, when he stopped to fight with the dog.
Mr. B. got his gun, reloaded it, and shot the bear a second time. The bear now came at him more furiously, then before, and knocked the gun out of his hands a second time. Mr. B. swung round the bush to keep out of the bear's reach drew one of his butcher's knives, and stabbed the bear in the belly. The bear struck him several severe blows, knocking his knife out of his hand. Mr. B. then drew his second knife, when the bear seized his hand in which he held the knife, causing him to drop it.
The bear now got the better of Mr. B. getting him down, biting him in the face, cutting several severe gashes on the left side, tearing out his right eye, and also tearing off the right side of his face. It bit him several large holes in his right side; in fact it bit him nearly all over his body, down to his boots. The bear now turned to fight the dog; that saved Mr. B. from having been killed on the spot. The bear and the dog then rolled down the hill for some distance, still fighting, when Mr. B. gathered up his gun, two knives and the rope with which he started for Mr. Michael's cabin, distance about one mile and a half, where he arrived, much exhausted, about ten o'clock A. M. and was assisted into the house, when he related the melancholy event to Mr. McDonough.
Being conscious that he could not long survive, he spoke of his family and his desire to see them before he died. He was reconciled to meet his death, and spoke of a future happiness. He died about three o'clock P. M. of the same day. Mrs. Baird was sent for and hastened with all possible speeds the distance of eighteen miles over very rough, hilly road, but arrived about five minutes too late to see her husband alive. He was brought home and buried near his farm, some four miles north of Rogue river, near stage road. He leaves a wife and sixteen children, eight of whom are but young, and live at home.
I don't know what is more spectacular... the story or the fact that Mr. Baird had 16 children!!