Ghost town of Perry Oregon
Name: Perry (Stumptown)
Class: E4
GPS: 45.349148, -118.167555
Directions:
Head west along I-84 from La Grande. At about three miles take exit 257. Lower Perry is immediately to the right. Take a left than a quick jog to the right on Hamilton Creek Frontage Road. Follow this road for about half a mile. After crossing the Grand Ronde River there are several older, occupied, homes.
Description:
There is conflicting information here about the original name of Perry Oregon. The Oregon Genealogy and History web page states that the original name was Stumptown. But, Oregon Post Offices, 1847-1982 says that when the original post office was opened on August 26, 1980, the name was Stanley with Robert Smith as the first postmaster. The Post Office Department changed the name to avoid duplication and to honor a railroad dispatcher from La Grande.
A company town was built to support the saw mill opened here by the Smith-Stanley Lumber Company in 1890. The Oregon Western Railroad & Navigation built a rail road to here to move timber to the mills in La Grande. In 1900 the saw mill was sold to George Stoddard and C. W. Nibley who renamed it to Grande Ronde Lumber Company. The lumber mill burned down in 1924 and was not rebuilt. The Grande Ronde Lumber Company and Stoddard Lumber Company merged in 1927. The mill was moved across the valley to Ponderosa and most of the town moved with it.
The town lasted for a few more years, but the post office was closed to La Grande on March 14, 1931.According to History of Oregon, Volume One by Charles Henry Carey, Louis Pfel from Perry Oregon died of Broncho Pneumonia while serving in the US Army during World War I
More Information:
Do you know anything about this town? Have you ever lived here? Please leave your recollections in the comments below!
According to History of Oregon, Volume One by Charles Henry Carey
I grew up at Lower Perry. 1956 til present. My parents came here in 1951. We live by the Perry swimming hole. We had 3 Perrys lower, middle and upper Perry. lower Perry was most people lived and had an old school house there. middle Perry was the old mill grounds, ice place but was basically a ghost town with everything fallen in, old cars left around, just the cement left up for the buildings and ice house. Then there is Upper Perry not much written about it. There is 10 residential places in Upper Perry and the old Arch bridge that was redone in recent years. I recollect a old service station as a young child that was closed and later tore down, I actually lived near lower Perry near the swimming hole on the old hwy that dead ends at our place. There were 2 old mills on our land and the counties back before 1900. our house was further down in the field till the first building of the freeway was put in in 1959 time period. they put it to close to the house and it required it to be moved. Kids went to school in Perry until the 1950s. the old schoolhouse/gym remains one major building that was used for a school house burnt so they used the gym instead. The mills closed in 1930’s at middle Perry. The dams, etc in the river for the mill-log transport etc was changed. they used to ride the logs from up starkey way to the mill-stopping just above the dam.