With railroad access to distant markets, Medford’s orchard industry flourished as hundreds of thousands of apple and pear trees were planted in the early 1900s and commercial fruit became the Rogue Valley’s major export. Promoters advertised the Rogue Valley as an agricultural Mecca, and Medford became one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. By 1910, a housing shortage led to a tent city on the edge of town, while a growing population and capital from wealthy easterners transformed the modest town into a sophisticated metropolis. Between 1909 and 1911, many impressive buildings were erected, including Sacred Heart Hospital on the city’s developing east side, and by 1912 Medford had a high school, three elementary schools, a city park, a new passenger depot, and a Carnegie library, along with a roller-skating rink, indoor swimming pool, movie theaters, and an opera house. Mountain water reached the city through more than 21 miles of wooden pipe, residents had electricity and telephone service, automobiles traveled over 18 miles of paved streets, and fruit warehouses and packing sheds near the train yard helped make Medford the county’s shipping and commercial center. Prosperity ended when the Orchard Boom collapsed and, by the mid-teens, a local recession sharply reduced the population, but the community maintained a progressive spirit and gradually rebuilt its economy. Irrigation districts and cooperatives helped stabilize the orchard industry, and Medford celebrated its recovery in 1927 with a Jubilee of Visions Realized. In 1922, a fairgrounds with exhibition buildings and racing tracks opened on the south side, with a dirt landing strip inside the racetrack forming part of Oregon’s first public airport. In 1926, that airport became Oregon’s first and only airmail stop, establishing Medford as an early leader in commercial aviation, and in 1927 the city also became the county seat. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, unemployment rose, growth halted, and one bank failed, while a political revolt brought stolen ballots from the new county courthouse and a constable’s murder. Even so, Medford continued to look ahead, dedicating a new state-of-the-art airport in 1930 for larger passenger aircraft and, beginning in 1936, using New Deal money to modernize buildings in the streamlined architectural style of the era.