With new cocktail bars and upscale restaurants, live jazz in the clubs and cafes, more art galleries than ever before, and day spas that take advantage of Ashland's famed Lithia Springs mineral waters, Ashland is growing ever more cosmopolitan. Sure, this is still a small town 6 hours by car from the nearest metropolitan area, but more than half a century of staging Shakespeare plays has turned it into Oregon's preeminent arts community.It all started on the Fourth of July 1935. In a small Ashland theater built as part of the Chautauqua movement, Angus Bowmer, an English professor at Southern Oregon University, staged a performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Despite the hard times that the Great Depression had brought to this quiet mill town in the rugged Siskiyou Mountains, the show was a success. The Depression had, however, dashed any hopes local businessman Jesse Winburne had of turning Ashland into a mineral-springs resort. However, before the Depression struck, Winburne had managed to construct beautiful Lithia Park. Luckily, neither man's love's labor was lost, and today their legacies have turned the town into one of the Northwest's most popular destinations.Each year more than 300,000 people attend performances of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a 9-month-long repertory festival that was born of Bowmer's love of the Bard. Though Ashland never became a mineral-springs resort, Lithia Park, through which still flow the clear waters of Winburne's dreams, is still the town's centerpiece. Surrounding the town are mountains and forests that also offer a wealth of outdoor recreational activities, so there's still plenty to do when the curtains go down and the stages are dark. This is one of the best little arts towns in America, so be prepared to fall in love.