Visitor Info

Current Day Phoenix
Our little valley packs a lot of punch!  Phoenix is centrally located in the beautiful Rogue Valley.  The Rogue Valley boasts beautiful and diverse landscapes.  Big town level access to the arts married with small town friendliness and charm.

Our area landscapes offer rivers, mountains, and mountain lakes.  Several areas, such as the California Redwoods, Rogue River, Mount Ashland Ski Area, Pacific Ocean beaches, Oregon Caves, and Crater Lake National Park are all just a short drive away.

Our local arts community offers diverse stage and musical productions presented by Camelot Theatre, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Craterian Theatre, and the Britt Festival.  All of these local venues offer quality productions.

If you enjoy wine tasting our Valley also boasts several renowned wineries that all have tasting rooms and most are in beautiful locals.

For river rafters both the Rogue River and the Klamath Rivers have great runs of various classes.

Our Valley also boasts a beautiful greenway that follows primarily follows along the edge of Bear Creek.  If you enjoy walking, jogging, bicycling, skating, or bird watching the Bear Creek is a great resource.  The greenway runs almost the entire length of the Valley. For more information visit www.bearcreekgreenway.com.

If you would like a visitor information packet to you please download the request form and fax or mail the form to us.  Visitor information packets are $12.00 per packet.

Historical Phoenix
Phoenix is one of the oldest sections of the Rogue River Valley to be inhabited by non-native peoples.  The original inhabitants were the Takelma People.  At the end of 1851 there were twenty six white men living in the Rogue River Valley.  It was during that year that the first resident of what is now known as Phoenix, Oregon, Sam Colver, took up a donation land claim where the city of Phoenix is now located.

A short time later the Jacksonville gold fields were discovered and an influx of white settlers arrived in the Rogue Valley.  In 1852 Sam Colver built a cabin on his claim.  This cabin was located across from the historic Colver house, which is still standing on Main Street (Hwy 99 South) in Phoenix.

As it grew in size, the little town which developed around the Colver settlement was first known as “Gasburg”.  Gasburg quickly became a popular stage stop.

The most credible and accepted story about how what is now known as Phoenix originally became know as Gasburg was printed in the Phoenix Centennial History published in 1952.

“In the town, among a considerable number of young bachelors, there was just one young marriageable woman.  Her name was Kate Clayton, who was employed by Mrs. Waite to help her cook for the men who were employed at the Lumber Mill.  She was a girl about Twenty, an one of the most fluent talkers I ever met.

As every young girl fourteen years of age and above was considered a young lady of marriageable age, and usually had a dozen or more admirers, Miss Kate, as the sole attraction of the community, was pursued by almost every single male of any age in the community.  She was well able to carry on more than a dozen conversations with her admirers at once, and to put any of them in their place with fast and fiery repartee.  She did all of this while continuing to cook as well as serve them meals without missing an order or a step.  She was given the nickname of ‘Gassy Kate’ because of her skill at conversation.

When the subject of giving the town a name came up, the unanimous verdict among Kate’s many admirers was to call it ‘Gasburg’.

After more than 20 years of existence as Gasburg, a post office was established at the Grist Mill owned by S.M. Waite, and he had a fire insurance policy with the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company.  He took the name of Phoenix from the large metal insurance plate on the front of his building as the name of the post office.  It was more than a generation, however, before most of the residents of Gasburg began calling the town Phoenix.”

For more information on the history of the City of Phoenix contact the Phoenix Historical Society at (541) 512-0614.