Walking Tour of Historic Coburg Homes: Self-Guided Historic Coburg Tour

From introduction: "Coburg began in 1847, when John Diamond and Jacob Spores settled near the site of a Kalapooya Indian village on the McKenzie River. The Donation Land Act drew early pioneers to farm the fertile soil of the Willamette Valley; it was the Willamette of their dreams, the Promised Land at the end of the Oregon Trail. The first blacksmith, Charles Payne, is credited with naming the town in 1865 after shoeing a particularly fine stallion imported from Coburg, Germany, a city well known for its prized horses. Coburg was incorporated in 1893, and soon after began its Golden Years as people moved to town and business boomed. In 1898 Booth-Kelly leased a small mill in the center of town and in 1900 purchased it; the mill expanded and employed 300 men to work around the clock. Four trains came into Coburg each day, a passenger train and three trains to take finished lumber to other markets. Coburg exploded to 1,200 residents in the first decade of the new century and boasted five stores, a state bank, bakery, hotel, hardware and furniture store, restaurant, theater or public hall, moving picture show, schools, churches, and its own newspaper, the Coburg Journal. Twenty years later, fires, dambuilding, and other lumber-related decisions caused the Coburg Mill to close and hundreds of people were left without work. In the months and years that followed, Coburg citizens moved away to find work or moved their houses onto bottom land and returned to their farming pioneer roots. Today, Coburg retains much of its historic character; many homes in Coburg’s Historic District exhibit a variety of architectural styles common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries." Project funding was provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the City of Coburg (project number OR-13-02), administered by the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office (grant number P13F00057) and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Coburg, Oregon is a Certified Local Government.

Walking Tour of Historic Coburg Homes: Self-Guided Historic Coburg Tour

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