What is the building at the top of upper Table Rock Mountain?

-- Jacob W., Grants Pass

After pondering your question here at SYA headquarters, we've decided you must be referring to the old concrete structure on the south shoulder of the rock, Jacob.

None of the upper Table Rock veterans among us — that includes most of the staff — can remember seeing a building atop the rock.

But all of us recall the concrete structure. That would be the site where folks once lived more than 80 years ago. We know this because another SYA fan had written in to ask about the same site two years ago.

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But the answer bears repeating because inquiring minds periodically ask about it, and because this is the time of year when people love to climb to the top of the valley's twin plateaus.

Back in 2005, we talked to Medford's Lucile Gann who actually lived there from 1926 to 1928. She reports the concrete structure was a retaining wall that made it possible to build three or four houses on the side of the hill for the families of workers in the neighboring Modoc Orchard.

Gann knows of what she speaks: her father was a mule skinner who drove wagons full of boxed pears to local packing houses and plowed the orchard area.

Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 776-4376; or by e-mail to youasked@mailtribune.com.