Today is the birthday of George William (Some accounts say Wesley, though his headstone has only an initial “W”) Bashford (April 14, 1833-January 4, 1913). He was born in Columbia, New York, and by 1860, as age 25, he was living in Wisconsin and married Emma Jane in February, though another souce claims the marriage didn’t take place until 1865. He served in the Army during the Civil War, stationed in Iowa, and seems to have settle there afterwards, and all four of his children were born in Iowa. In 1899, the family moved to Oregon and settled in Jacksonville, Oregon. He appears to have owned the Medford Lumber Yard at 8th and Fir streets, but In 1893, he founded the Southern Oregon Brewing, Ice and Cold Storage Co. also in nearby Medford, Oregon. After 1895, they used Medford Brewing Co. as a trade name for the business.

He appears to have gotten out of the brewing business fairly quickly, and sold the brewery to Henry Weinhard in 1897, just four years after starting it. With anothger partner, he then returned to milling, and “bought a flour mill in Roseburg, [which] stayed in the family until it was blown up in the famous Roseburg blast in 1959.”

Because he was brewing for such a short time, there wasn’t much more information I could find. Here’s a short obituary from 1913: