Gilchrist, Oregon

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox settlement Gilchrist Template:IPAc-en is a census-designated place in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. The community is located on U.S. Route 97 between Bend and Klamath Falls.

History

Gilchrist was the last lumber company town in Oregon.<ref name="resort">Template:Cite news</ref> The town was founded in 1938 by the family-owned Gilchrist Timber Company, with Frank and Mary Gilchrist as the owners and town founders.<ref name="resort"/> The mill moved there from Jasper County, Mississippi, in search of lumber and lower taxes, building a dam on the Little Deschutes River to create the mill pond.<ref name="resort"/> In 1939, Gilchrist School was built by the Public Works Administration.<ref name="resort"/>

The Gilchrist Mall was built in 1939. It was the first mall opened east of the Cascade Mountains. The mall included grocery store, post office, drugstore, barbershop, beauty parlor, liquor store, bowling alley, and a library. The mall also housed a club for Gilchrist Lumber Company employees. The club had a bar and lounge area, dance floor, pool tables, and a large meeting hall. While some of the businesses have changed over time, as of 2019 the mall buildings remain essentially unchanged.<ref>Driscoll, John, "Historic Gilchrist Mall legacy might soon be lost"], The Bulletin, Bend, Oregon, 16 October 2019, p. B4.</ref>

The company was sold to Crown Pacific Partners in 1991, which subsequently fired all its employees.<ref name="resort"/> The 120 homes and other facilities in the town were subsequently sold to residents and others in 1997, with Crown Pacific retaining the sawmill and timberland.<ref name="resort"/> Prior to this sale, all houses in the town were painted in Gilchrist brown (with the exception of a small area on the north end of town called Rainbow Circle by its residents).<ref name="resort"/> The timberland and the town's sawmill, upgraded to handle smaller logs in 2000, were among the last remaining assets of Crown Pacific, which declared bankruptcy in 2003 and was taken over by creditors at the end of 2004, and again bought by Canadian company Interfor Pacific in 2006.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As of 2009, the kindergarten through twelfth grade school had an enrollment of 238 students.<ref name="resort"/>

Climate

This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above Template:Convert. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Gilchrist has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps.<ref>Climate Summary for Gilchrist, Oregon</ref>

References

• Template:Oregon Encyclopedia