Ashland Overview

Ashland appeals to the senses. A place to walk, bike, browse and enjoy. Sip coffee, stroll through our celebrated hundred acre Lithia Park, visit our wineries and orchards, buy a book, view some art, have some fun! Every season has its charms here. Whether you're an outdoor or indoor enthusiast, we have something for you to enjoy. So come once or come often - our door is always open and you are always welcome!

With new cocktail bars and upscale restaurants, live jazz in the clubs and cafes, more art galleries than ever before, and day spas that take advantage of Ashland's famed Lithia Springs mineral waters, Ashland is growing ever more cosmopolitan. Sure, this is still a small town 6 hours by car from the nearest metropolitan area, but more than half a century of staging Shakespeare plays has turned it into Oregon's preeminent arts community.

It all started on the Fourth of July 1935. In a small Ashland theater built as part of the Chautauqua movement, Angus Bowmer, an English professor at Southern Oregon University, staged a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Despite the hard times that the Great Depression had brought to this quiet mill town in the rugged Siskiyou Mountains, the show was a success. The Depression had, however, dashed any hopes local businessman Jesse Winburne had of turning Ashland into a mineral-springs resort. However, before the Depression struck, Winburne had managed to construct beautiful Lithia Park. Luckily, neither man's love's labor was lost, and today their legacies have turned the town into one of the Northwest's most popular destinations.

Each year more than 300,000 people attend performances of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a 9-month-long repertory festival that was born of Bowmer's love of the Bard. Though Ashland never became a mineral-springs resort, Lithia Park, through which still flow the clear waters of Winburne's dreams, is still the town's centerpiece. Surrounding the town are mountains and forests that also offer a wealth of outdoor recreational activities, so there's still plenty to do when the curtains go down and the stages are dark. This is one of the best little arts towns in America, so be prepared to fall in love.

Throughout Oregon, the hamlet of ASHLAND, forty miles southeast of Grants Pass, is identified with William Shakespeare - a real anomaly among the rest of the timber and dairy-farming towns. Since 1945, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been held here between February and October, packing audiences into the half-timbered Elizabethan Theatre in Lithia Park. Its setting, between the Cascade and the Siskiyou mountains, is magnificent; there's good skiing in the winter and river rafting in summer; there's also some excellent contemporary fringe theater - not to mention pleasant cafés, galleries and a friendly atmosphere throughout.

The Angus Bowmer Theatre, adjacent to the Elizabethan Theatre, stages both Shakespearean and more recent works, while the appropriately named New Theatre has a mostly modern repertoire. The three theaters share the same box office (tel 541/482-4331) and tickets average around $40, sometimes half-price on the day; standing room at the Elizabethan Theatre costs $10. For a further helping of contemporary drama, try the Actors Theater, three miles north in the tiny town of TALENT, at Main and Talent streets (tel 541/535-5250), or the Oregon Cabaret Theater, in a renovated pink church at First and Hargadine streets (Feb-Dec; tel 541/488-2902).