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I Remember When-

Gilchrist was the last lumber company town in Oregon. The town was founded in 1938 by the family-owned Gilchrist Timber Company, which moved there from Mississippi in search of lumber and lower taxes. The family moved their operations to central Oregon, where they eventually acquired over 100,000 acres of timber land in Deschutes, Lake, and Klamath counties. The Gilchrist mill was built in 1938, complete with company town housing for about 500 residents. The town and the central shopping mall were built with aesthetics in mind. The Little Deschutes River was dammed to create a large mill pond. All the Houses were painted with a uniform brown color. The attractive setting, large lawns, tennis courts, and giant ponderosa pines made the town setting a resort-like atmosphere. In 1991 the Gilchrist Timber Company was sold to Crown Pacific Partners, which subsequently fired all its employees. The 120 homes and other facilities in the town were sold to residents and others around 1998, with Crown Pacific holding onto sawmill and timberland. The company upgraded to handle smaller logs in 2000, which 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. If you would like to add to the History page, please send us information via contact page we would love to hear from you. And don’t forget to check out the pictures that are linked at the top of this page. Thank you – Micah Ayers