Life & Culture – Ashland insider’s guide – The Oregonian

Why is arts-centered Ashland so appealing to visitors? It was designed that way. Ashland’s founders figured out quickly in the 1850s that this tiny southern Oregon settlement, on the emigrant trail and sheltered by the picturesque Siskiyou and Cascade mountains, could prosper not as a boom-and-bust gold town but one that supplied people prospecting for a richer future.