Antique & Vintage Postcards

Sepia photo postcard of the Hotel Oxford in Grants Pass, Oregon — a sturdy three-story brick commercial building on a downtown corner, "THE OXFORD" announced in large letters across the roofline, an early automobile parked at the curb below. The back identifies it as one of the most up-to-date hotels on the Pacific Coast and the headquarters for commercial travelers — the kind of claim that every ambitious small-city hotel made in the years when the Southern Pacific was opening the Oregon interior to business and settlement. Grants Pass sits at the confluence of the Rogue River valleys in Josephine County; in 1914 it was a growing commercial hub. A traveler named W.L. Geo. posted this in June 1914, writing to his wife in Portland that the morning was a little cloudy but he didn't think it would rain, and that he had fixed things up so he could make about fourteen more calls on his route.