October 24, 2017
Although the house at 305 S. Oregon Street in Jacksonville is known as the Kubli House, the Kubli family didn’t occupy it until 1872. The principal portion of the house was constructed around 1862 for its original occupants, Reuben Maury and his wife Elizabeth. Maury, a native of Kentucky, was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. Following service in the Mexican War, he came west as a 49-er. He supplemented his mining efforts with a “packing” business and came to Jacksonville as a “freighter” in 1852. Two years later he sold out his freighting business and opened a general merchandise store with Benjamin Davis on the site of Jacksonville’s Old City Hall. The partnership lasted until 1861 and the outbreak of the Civil War. Maury became an officer in the Union Army, eventually being promoted to Colonel and named as the army’s last commander of the District of Oregon. Davis, a nephew of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, returned to Missippi and the Confederacy.