On a Sunday morning in autumn, the Grants Pass Historic District is quiet but beautiful. Each structure on this block of G Street dates from 1894, seven years after Grants Pass — named for Ulysses S. Grant — was incorporated as the Josephine County seat.

GRANTS PASS —

The sign that hangs over Sixth Street says, “It’s the climate.”

I respectfully disagree, when it comes to Grant Pass’ most distinctive feature. I think it’s the Rogue River, which flows through the heart of Grants Pass. And Dutch Bros. coffee, founded here more than 22 years ago. And the emergence of hip and creative new restaurants and bars in the downtown historic district.

And the bears, of course.

What’s that? You’ve heard of the Grants Pass Cavemen, but you don’t know about the overpopulation of bears in this Southern Oregon city of 35,000?

Were you to visit during the summer tourist season, you wouldn’t miss the bears. Under sunny skies, dozens of the whimsically painted fiberglass sculptures are found throughout the community, standing in front of shops and restaurants, hotels and other businesses. But when winter arrives, more than 120 of these strong, stocky creatures move into the Bear Hotel.

This isn’t an annex to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park. Owned by Evergreen Federal Bank, the Bear Hotel is actually a 23,000-square-foot warehouse, located in an industrial park on the east side of Grants Pass. Townspeople call it an “artworks museum,” where more than a dozen artists’ studios share space with the bears and other fanciful creations — a cave-dwelling Bigfoot, for instance, along with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and a Christmas collection of nutcrackers.

Bears are jitterbugging across the dance floor. They are kayaking and skiing. They are gardening, chopping wood, playing the blues on guitar and harmonica, and taking fresh “beary” pies straight from the oven.

Townspeople credit Brady Adams, a former mayor and state senator and a retired Evergreen Bank president, with launching the “BearFest” project in 2003. Adams approached local artist Peter Sedlow about producing 30 bear sculptures as a symbol for the town. The bears were displayed on the city streets and auctioned off, raising $175,000 for nonprofits.

Today Sedlow’s workshop is one of those within the Bear Hotel. Visitors (who may visit at no charge by reservation) may watch the artist design the models for his 7-foot bears, many of which stand in and around the Taprock Northwest Grill, on the banks of the Rogue beside the main location of Evergreen Bank.

“We give artists hope,” Adams told The (Medford) Mail Tribune in a 2011 interview. “Even those who have an extraordinary amount of talent have a hard time making a living. For the bears, we give them supplies and a $500 gratuity, which really barely covers their expenses. But they often get work from being seen.”

Wildlife transformed

The bears are now anxiously awaiting the start of Rogue Winterfest, a five-day annual event that begins Thursday. In fact, they are the hosts of the event.

Each year, the Bear Hotel is transformed with vividly decorated trees and holiday lights, new art creations and outdoor displays. Winterfest begins with a Thursday night gala and grand auction in support of a trio of mental-health organizations, for which more than $400,000 has been raised. Family weekend events include “Christmas on Mars” and a culinary event featuring many of the area’s restaurants.

In May, the bears emerge from hibernation during the city’s annual BearFest. In 2014, 80 ursines were placed throughout downtown; inevitably, new inhabitants will join them in 2015.

The spring event kicks off the main tourist season in Southern Oregon. Almost overnight, Grants Pass becomes a base for rafting, kayaking or jet-boating the wild and scenic Rogue River, a half hour’s drive west; for discovering new passages in the Oregon Caves National Monument, an hour’s drive south; for sampling the newest vintages from the Applegate and Rogue valley wine regions, minutes to the east and southeast.

Indeed, Grants Pass is often regarded as more of a regional hub than as a destination in itself. And that’s a bit of a shame, because there are plenty of distractions in and near the city itself.

One of them, for animal lovers, is the Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center. Established in 1981 on 24 riverside acres, about 12 miles west of Grants Pass, this private facility performs the dual function — as its name suggests — of rehabilitating injured animals and birds for reintroduction to the wild environment and of educating the public about wildlife during guided tours and weekend children’s camps.

As many as 2,000 animals each year find their way to Wildlife Images, many of them after unfortunate accidents. Those who are too badly injured to be eventually returned to the wild become educational “ambassadors” — a team that now includes black and grizzly bears, a cougar, wolves, foxes, bobcats, raccoons, skunks, a badger, bald and golden eagles, an owl and a turkey vulture.

Wildlife Images is a nonprofit and receives no government support, so the admission charge ($12 for adults) goes directly into its operating budget. More than 80 volunteers handle the bulk of the animal care, education and other work.

History and art

My favorite part of Grants Pass is the downtown Historic District, which covers eight square blocks between Fourth and Sixth, F and J streets.

Named to honor Gen. Ulysses S. Grant after his victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi, the town was established on the old Applegate Trail in March 1865. It was formally incorporated as the Josephine County seat in 1887. Seventeen buildings that stand today on G and H streets were built between 1890 and 1912; many are now restaurants and coffee shops, antique stores and art galleries.

In the latter category is the Grants Pass Museum of Art, a spacious second-floor gallery that has just replaced an outstanding exhibition of David Lorenz Winston photography with a show of 80 individual works of members’ art. Founded 35 years ago, the museum has attracted work by oil painters and watercolorists, woodcarvers and printmakers, ceramists and quilters, to name but a few. The members’ exhibition is diverse, to say the least.

Another nearby gallery, with exhibitions (in the historic Grants Pass City Hall) that change every three to four weeks, is the FireHouse Gallery of Rogue Community College. A couple of blocks west, The Glass Forge is a working glass-art studio where visitors can make appointments to be guided through creation of their own piece of molten glass.

Just outside the Historic District, the renovated 1938 Rogue Theatre, an art deco-era movie palace, now presents a lineup of concerts that include the likes of Robert Cray (coming in February) and Jonny Lang (in March). Less than a mile north, the Barnstormers Theatre has been keeping the performing arts alive — in the form of community theater — since 1952.

Baristas create art of a very different kind directly beneath the “It’s the climate” sign on Sixth Street between F and G. Here is the original location of Dutch Bros. Coffee, a chain of drive-thru espresso bars launched in this city in 1992 by brothers Dane and Travis Boersma — who may not have been Dutch but were of Dutch heritage.

Today the company has 233 stores in seven Western states. According to the company’s website, that makes Dutch Bros. the country’s largest privately owned drive-thru coffee-shop chain. And its sit-down coffee house at Sixth and E streets, just outside the Historic District, is one of the city’s most popular.

Good dining options

I like the Dutch Bros. brew, but I am even more impressed with the growth of the restaurant business in this part of the city. Although there are still too many cafes that close early, even on weekend nights, and remain shut on Sundays, it wasn’t many years ago that visitors might have thrown up their hands and headed down Interstate 5 to Medford to eat.

That’s no longer necessary. In the shadowy confines of Blondie’s Bistro, I had an excellent dinner of steak with a green peppercorn sauce, a house salad and a glass of Applegate Valley wine for only $37, including tip. The Twisted Cork, surprisingly for its name, had a better list of bottles than wines by the glass, but I loved the basil, leek and corn crab cakes, drizzled with a champagne citrus beurre blanc.

Pending the opening of a couple of new near-downtown brewpubs, The Haul more than satisfied a midday light-bite craving. Owned in part by Conner Fields Brewing, whose beers are always on tap, this gastropub had a good selection of plates for both meat eaters and vegetarians; I thought the coriander pork dumplings were particularly good.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com