Alice Peil Walkway
Upper entrance: going up Granite Street from North Main Street in Ashland, the entrance to the Alice Peil Walkway is on the left about one and a half blocks up. Lower entrance: from the Plaza, head up Winburn Way, crossing the bridge over Ashland Creek. The entrance to the walkway is to the right of 51 Winburn Way, which contains Ashland City offices. Walking to the right side of the building will reveal the steel staircase that is the lower entrance to the walkway.
: Alice Applegate was born in 1872. She was the first white female born in Klamath County, and a granddaughter of Lindsey Applegate. She became a school teacher, and in 1899 was appointed principal of the training school at the Ashland Normal School. She went on to become the first female school principal in Ashland. In 1910 she married Claus Emil Peil and they moved into a newly built home at 52 Granite Street in Ashland. Emile had a farm implements store on the plaza that sold tools and wagons. He eventually sold Studebaker automobiles, and Alice became one of the first female drivers in Ashland. Emil’s business was located where Gateway Real Estate is now. Their home overlooked his business, and they built a walkway and steel stair case for easy access to the business.
Alice was one of the founders of the Ashland Study Club which supported the Chautauqua, the Ashland Library and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Emil died in 1938, but Alice stayed on in the home. Local residents used the walkway, so she donated it to the city, apparently in 1949. She died in1968. Alice and Emil are both Interred in the Mountain View Cemetery in Ashland.
Sources for this information include: an As It Was story by Amy Couture, episode 2 472, dated 7/15/2013: an article in the Southern Oregon Heritage magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2, P.38, by Josh Paddison: the book “Remembering” by Arthur Kreisman, P.25: Jackson County Property Data Online: Mt. View Cemetery records on line and information from the National Register of Historic Places for the Emile and Alice Applegate Peil House.
