The city was named in by David Loring, civil engineer and right-of-way agent for the Oregon and California Railroad , after Medford, Massachusetts , which was near Loring's hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. Medford is near the middle fork of Bear Creek. In , a group of railroad surveyors headed by S. Citizens of neighboring Jacksonville hoped that it would pass between their town and Hanley Butte , near the present day Claire Hanley Arboretum.
Such a move would have all but guaranteed prosperous growth for Jacksonville, but Dolson decided instead to stake the railroad closer to Bear Creek. By November , a depot site had been chosen and a surveying team led by Charles J.
Howard was hard at work platting the new town. They completed their work in early December , laying out 82 blocks for development. James Sullivan Howard, a merchant and surveyor, [ 10 ] claimed to have built the town's first building in January , [ 11 ] though blacksmith Emil Piel was advertising for business at the "central depot" in the middle of December Howard's store became Medford's first post office, with Howard serving as postmaster.
The establishment of the post office led to the incorporation of Medford as a town by the Oregon Legislative Assembly on February 24, , [ 13 ] and again as a city in Howard held the position of postmaster for Medford's first ten years, and again held the post at the time of his death on November 13, The beginning of the 20th century was a transitional period for the area.
Medford built a new steel bridge over Bear Creek to replace an earlier one which washed away three years before. Without a bridge, those wanting to cross had to ford the stream, typically using a horse-drawn wagon; the first automobile did not arrive in Medford until Haskins had opened a drugstore just after the town was platted, and in he allowed the Medford Library Association to open a small library in that store. Five years later the library moved to Medford's new city hall; in another four years, Andrew Carnegie 's donation allowed a dedicated library to be built.
