Ashland Street (part 1) – from west end to SOU library

20 Jun Ashland Street (part 1) – from west end to SOU library

A family’s “hungry bear” story.

Rural residential to University Library.

Three Ashland Trees of the Year.

40 photos!

Published June 2024.

“We had a bear steal our 23-pound turkey on Thanksgiving morning one time!

Morgan Cottle

Living on Ashland Street can feel very rural (as in the quote above) or it can feel urban (living right next to a university). I will begin our Ashland Street walk from the rural end, the west end of this very long street. Part 1 will take us 0.7 miles downhill from the corner of Guthrie Street, through residential neighborhoods, until we come to the Southern Oregon University (SOU) Hannon Library. Ashland Street, Part 2 will be completely different, as every block is commercial for 1.3 miles from Siskiyou Boulevard to the Interstate 5 freeway.

Family stories from Morgan and Tara Cottle

I had the pleasure of talking with Morgan and Tara Cottle as we walked the property the Cottle family used to own at the west end of Ashland Street. Morgan grew up in the family house at the end of Ashland Street (more on that in a moment). 

As we stood at the end of paved Ashland Street, Morgan pointed due west. He said, “Ashland Street was originally on the books to go up and over the hill and then connect to Terrace Street. Finally, they decided it was just too steep. So they ended Ashland Street here.” On the other side of the “too steep” hill is the five acres that became the Cottle-Phillips Open Space, part of the city’s park system. 

Cottle-Phillips Open Space (in the City of Ashland park system)

Morgan’s father Richard Cottle owned four acres, but paying the property taxes every year was a burden. Looking at options, he got a good offer from a builder who wanted to put in thirteen houses. He ultimately decided to sell it to the City of Ashland in the late 1990s. He got only about half what the builder offered; more important, he felt the satisfaction of knowing it would stay open land for the public to enjoy. There is access to the Cottle-Phillips open space from Herbert Street and Terrace Street, with a trail that meanders north-south through the property.

At one time, this land was part of a large orchard. As we walked through the open space, Morgan showed me fruit trees that may be 100 years old: many varieties of apples and pears. Since selling the land, Morgan and his family have continued to tend the fruit trees, doing occasional pruning and harvesting some of the fruit before the bears eat it.

In terms of animals in the open space, Morgan told me “You’ve got everything: cougar, bear, foxes, raccoons, turkey, deer – everything in here. Our neighbor up here, sitting one day in their patio, saw four or five deer bolting, and right behind was a cougar.“

The Cottle house at 390 Ashland Street

Morgan’s parents built their house here in fall of 1962. The bricks around the base of the house were taken from Hotel Ashland on East Main Street, which had been demolished in 1961. Hotel Ashland ‘s history began in 1889. When it opened that year, it was called the Hotel Oregon, but the name was changed in the 1920s. The family also got the Hotel Ashland bar, which Morgan and Tara still have at their house.

This land was still very rural in 1962. There had been a farm (or orchard) house on their property at one point, but it was demolished before 1962. The two photos below, one that shows the view from their new house, and the other an aerial photo, reveal how undeveloped the neighborhood was at that time.

The hungry bear

Animals enjoying the open space also visited the house. I love this family story, as told by Morgan. “We had a bear steal our 23-pound turkey on Thanksgiving morning one time! The bear took the whole thing – along with the big cooler where it was thawing in the carport. We had 16 to 18 people coming to our house that night. I got up on Thanksgiving morning, went out to the carport, and the whole cooler was gone. First I thought it was raccoons, but I just couldn’t visualize a troop of raccoons hauling the cooler away. Then our neighbor Stuart found the carcass down here [in the open space]. We ran down to Safeway and told the story to Margaret. She said, ‘Go on and pick out any turkey you want and we’ll give you the 5 cents a pound deal, because that’s worth the story.’ So we bought it, did a quick thaw and bake, and fed everybody Thanksgiving dinner.” 

The TID/Ashland irrigation ditch runs just behind their property line. I saw nearly a dozen people walking the trail in the few minutes I was there with Morgan and Tara. When Morgan was a kid, he and his friends would “muck around” in the TID ditch looking for frogs. Their feet would sink about six inches into the mud at the bottom. That was before the irrigation ditch bottom was sprayed with Gunite concrete to preserve water.

Walking east on Ashland Street

The south end of Guthrie Street meets the west end of Ashland Street. 

Houses on the 400 block were built between 1950 and 1977. There is an artistic small tree at 420 Ashland Street, a house built in 1966. This block also has a few yard art highlights.

Houses on the 500 block have an even larger age spread, mostly due to the historic 1900 farm house at 536 Ashland Street. The other houses range in construction dates from 1947 to 2016.

You’ll see another 1900 farm house at 698 Ashland Street. 

Three Trees of the Year along Ashland Street

The 800 block has a small apartment complex, which was built in 1960. Ashland’s 1998 Tree of the Year, a massive Coast redwood, stands tall in the yard by the apartments. 

The 1991 Tree of the Year, an Interior live oak with a dramatic story, is at the corner of Ashland Street and Beach Street. The old oak, possibly older than the town of Ashland, was taken down by a heavy snowstorm in 2008. Now look at it. I will write a photo essay about this “back from the dead” tree later this year.

The 1993 Tree of the Year is just a block away, in Glenwood Park. This Walnut tree lost two large limbs years ago, but it is still a huge tree. 

Beach Creek flows under Ashland Street here along the side of Glenwood Park. At this point, Beach Creek is just a trickle much of the year, but it manages to flow all the way to and through North Mountain Park, where it merges with Bear Creek.

Entering Southern Oregon University

As we end our walk along this section of Ashland Street, we go from residential houses to university buildings: the Science building, Central Hall and finally Hannon Library.