Final Environmental Impact Statement - New Federal Courthouse

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Historic and Cultural Resources millrace was constructed in 1851 to power a sawmill. By the 1880s, a commercial district had emerged on Willamette Street between 7th and 10th avenues, with hotels, drug stores, grocers, banks; and other enterprises that together formed the business center. After the city of Eugene was officially platted, several additional plats were filed in the area south of 2°d Avenue and west of the millrace. In 1871 the Oregon and California Railroad constructed a line from Portland south to Eugene, which was extended to California in 1885 when Southern Pacific Railroad took over this line. To address the shipping and distribution needs of agricultural producers, the Lane County Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association was organized in 1908. This cooperative established a complex of industrial buildings, located along the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks at the intersection of East 8`h Avenue and Ferry Street. From this location the association shipped produce to mazkets throughout the country. While industry in early Eugene clustered along the millrace, where power could easily be procured, by 1871 the Southern Pacific Railroad attracted industrial development because of its access to transportation routes. The increasing use of automobiles by the 1920s challenged railroads and transformed Eugene's streetscape. With the advent of the automobile, Eugene paved its dirt roads to accommodate automobiles; auto sales and service stations sprang up throughout the city; and eventually paved parking lots occupied large portions of the city. Significant modifications to historic buildings occurred in more recent times, when Eugene undertook a program of downtown urban renewal involving alteration of the courthouse square blocks into a contemporary park, along with the Eugene mall project, which modernized buildings along Willamette Street. Site History Alternative 1 Site History The Riverfront site (Alternative 1) is located north of Main Street and east of Mill Street in Springfield. Although Main Street currently stretches from the Willamette River east into downtown, during the early 1900s it began one block east, at Mill Street, and headed east. A 1907 map showing the intersection of Main and Mill streets indicates that residential buildings dominated the study area. Within the block between West A and Main streets, the Alternative 1 site included three dwellings with associated outbuildings, and by 1912 this block included a livery and feed-business building in place of one of the earlier dwellings. To the east of the Riverfront site, businesses were established along Main Street. This area would eventually become part of the city's commercial district. By 1960, a reinforced concrete bridge crossed the Willamette River, .providing access along Main Street. During this period, only one of the original dwellings on the above-described block remained. This house, located southwest of the intersection of West A and Mill streets, has since been removed. The remaining buildings on this block consisted of the four commercial buildings that aze still standing. Final EIS 66 New Federal Courthouse ___ 4