This story is part of KLCC's "Down by the River" series. To read the entire series, click here .

If you cross High Street from the Riverfront District, you head into another part of downtown Eugene that’s also a former industrial zone.

The buildings along Fifth Street once housed a sawmill, wool and poultry processing plants, and a factory where a product called excelsior was made.

“(Excelsior) was shredded cottonwood. It was a packing material. Before bubble wrap, they used excelsior,” Eugene Historian Randy Gudeika said during a walking tour of the neighborhood.

In the 1970s, as those plants shut down, a new project moved into the area. A local developer bought the building at Fifth and High and opened a spot that would accommodate six small, casual restaurants.

Zac Ziegler

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