The Roots-Banks House, designed by noted Medford architect
Frank C. Clark, was built in 1915, with a substantial addition in 1922. The house design is a Tudor/Arts & Crafts design, featuring characteristic "swept eaves." The 1922 addition by original owner John Roots included the library, dining room and front porch. The building is now called "The Burns Building" and houses a marketing & sales firm and a software company.
The house was built for John Roots, an orchardist, developer and entrepreneur who moved to Medford from the eastern United States during the "Orchard Boom" around 1910. Roots owned the house until selling it to Llewellyn Banks in 1929. Banks, also an orchardist, owned an extensive orchard in Riverside, California before moving to the Rogue Valley in 1921. Banks acquired a number of orchard tracts in the valley and ultimately built his own packing plant. He gained the loyalty of many small orchardists by pricing his packing services below the established rates of other packing houses. Banks was noted as flamboyant, a man who owned two Cadillacs and had his new home carpeted with Oriental rugs.
In 1929 Banks also purchased the Medford Daily News. Politically, Banks could be described as a Populist and he used his newspaper as a vehicle to publish commentaries he wrote on national and local events that ran counter to his political views. His anti-government, anti-corporate articles were described by some as semi-fascist. Banks gained a great deal of popularity among people who shared his views and was noted as a charismatic, almost "hynpotic" public speaker.
What followed was the most infamous crime in Medford's history - Banks sought political office, failed, and mounting pressures from depression-era economic conditions and poor business decisions eroded his vast fortune, adding to his frustration. He became ringleader of a group called the "Good Government Congress," which he created as a means to rally like-minded citizens of Jackson County against the government. On March 16, 1933, Medford Police Constable George Prescott attempted to serve a bench warrant for the arrest of Banks for interference with the 1932 elections. Banks shot and killed officer Prescott, a crime for which he was tried and sentenced to life in prison.
This association of this house with the rise of the Good Government Movement and the events of March 16, 1933 provide the significance that led to approval as a National Registry property.
You can read more about the house and these events on the National Register of Historic Places Nomination form and on the associated Infamous Crime Scenes Waymark.
Note: Click a photo to enlarge
