Jacksonville Woodlands Association Inc

The Jacksonville Woodlands project is the most successful small-town, all volunteer land preservation project in Oregon. Since 1989 we have been protecting the human and natural heritage of Historic Jacksonville, Oregon. Rich Gulch is the site of one of the richest gold strikes in the history of the West. Gold was first discovered on Daisy Creek (Rich Gulch) in 1852. The resulting gold rush founded the town of Jacksonville, Oregon. Because Jacksonville’s buildings have been so well preserved and represent an 1880’s commercial look, the National Park Service and Congress designated the town a National Historic Landmark City in 1966. The town’s preservation efforts have now extended beyond the buildings on Main Street to the surrounding forested hillsides. When the easier placer gold mining in the streams played out in the 1860’s, the miners brought in ditched water from nearby creeks to hydraulically wash out a large, steep sided canyon known as Rich Gulch. The sections of Rich Gulch that have been included in the Woodlands project contains numerous examples of turn of the century hydraulic gold mining.