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Warehouse up for Historic Register Former nightclub was originally part of Medford's railroad district heritage By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune When the rusty-red bricks were being laid for the Medford Grocery Warehouse, the city was a bustling burg along the railroad linking Oregon and California. That was 1910, a time when the locomotive was king of transportation. "During that industrial period, the railroad was Medford's bread and butter - that was our pipeline," observed George Kramer, a historical preservation consultant. "We shipped fruit out and shipped everything else in - all by rail." The two-story brick building at the corner of 10th and Front streets has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. It is among several structures and historic districts being considered today in Salem by the Oregon Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation. Other local structures nominated include the Schmidt House in Grants Pass and the Siskiyou-Hargadine Historic District in Ashland. The city of Ashland nominated the district bounded by East Main, Morse, Beach, Iowa and Pioneer streets. The register, maintained by the National Park Service, is the official list of the nation's cultural resources deemed worthy of preservation. The old building in Medford is worth preserving, said Kramer, who nominated it for owner Bruce Larson of Larson's Superstores. "It's one of the only surviving industrial buildings related to Medford's railroad heyday," Kramer said. "Its sole function was to take in goods delivered by rail. "This was before trucks were powerful enough to get over the mountains," he added. "The railway was our way of transportation." The historic section of the building, 70 by 100 feet, has extremely thick wood floors supported by giant wood columns, he noted. "It was designed to carry very heavy loads," he said. The only other railroad corridor structure of its ilk remaining is the brick building across the street from the Rogue Valley Transportation District station on Front Street, he said. The Medford Grocery Warehouse closed in 1929 because of several factors, Kramer said. "One was the completion of the Pacific Highway in the late 1920s," he said. "Another was that by then, the Model A had superseded the Model T with more powerful engines to go over the mountains." Finally, the Klamath Falls route became the main railroad line between Oregon and California in 1927. The Great Depression followed in 1929, he said. "It's an important part of Medford history," he said. In 1978, the late Harry Arnold, a Rogue Valley area theater owner, launched Medford's first teen disco, Fat City, in the old building. It later morphed into a teen hangout known as Night Lights and eventually Remix. The latter closed down following a fatal stabbing outside the building in summer 1993. Nominations approved today will then be considered by the state committee's counterpart at the national level. National recognition of historic preservation allows the owners to receive property tax freezes and to avoid some building-code requirements in order to restore the historic structures. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.