Vol. 1: This is not a history book nor is it a book of historical photos. However, as the years pass, it will become history. As the photographer and author of this, the first in a series of books about the streets of Grants Pass, I feel the reason for such an undertaking needs to be explained, and that is to simply record what the buildings looked like in 2014. At the end of the 19th Century, Grants Pass became a small city. It existed in name from 1864 when it got its first post office. Therefore, this book of streets, celebrates the 150 year of the name Grants Pass. The post office was in a private home and by no means indicated there was a town. Grants Pass was a community of wide spread farms with the nearest post office at Rock Point (Gold Hill area) 17 miles from what is now downtown Grants Pass. This is a picture book. There are few comments. It just shows how North 6th Street in Grants Pass, Oregon looked in 2014. -- Vol. 2: This book is snapshots of the business buildings in Grants Pass, Oregon in 2014 mostly photographed between March and September. As the author and photographer of most of the photos in the series, I wanted to make a photographic record of what the streets of Grants Pass looked like in 2014 because in researching other photos, I noticed that modern photos of many common places have not been archived in the files of the Josephine County Historical Society. -- Vol. 3: This is Volume 3 in a series of photographs of buildings in Grants Pass, Oregon in 2014. It is published by the Josephine County Historical Society for benefit of the Society. In the future, we will have an idea of what the buildings in Grants Pass looked like in 2014. Maybe 25 or 50 years from now these images will be useful for historical reference. The idea for these small books, divided into sections of the town of Grants Pass, came about when I was looking for photos of what the older buildings in town looked like when they were first built. I discovered that no pictures were ever given to the Josephine County Historical Society to be filed and kept for historical reference. -- Vol. 4:This volume covers 7th Street from the Rogue River to Evelyn Avenue. Until the late 1950s 7th Street was not a primary street in Grants Pass. Although it was only one block from the “main street”, 6th Street, it was not part of the downtown business district. It was not even a through street, crossing the railroad tracks, until the late 1930s. Much of it was residential. It extended from M Street to about Savage Street. When the second bridge was built, Highway 99 was no longer just 6th Street. 6th Street became the southbound portion of highway 99 through Grants Pass, and 7th Street was the northbound portion of Highway 99. -- Vol. 5: The idea of just taking photos of the way Grants Pass looked in 2014 came about because in other publications, it was observed that the Society does not have photos of all the old buildings when they were first constructed. Hopefully, in decades from now, this series of little publications will give insight and photos of what the town looked like in 2014. It may also give local owners of buildings the impetus to give us their old photos of their buildings instead of just filing them or throwing them out.Remember this is just a picture book of the buildings of 2014. E and F Streets to the Parkway were original streets, but not very commercial for years before they were extended east to connect with the I-5 freeway in the 1960s. So some of the buildings have been there for decades and were built toward the end of the streets. Now they are surrounded by newer buildings.
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