Durkee is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Baker County, Oregon Baker County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,668. The county seat and largest city is Baker City. The county was organized on September 22, 1862, when a portion of Wasco Co ...

, United States. It has a post office with the ZIP code of 97905. Durkee lies at the Vandercar Road exit of Interstate 84. Durkee is known as the site of Oregon's only cement plant, the

Ash Grove Cement Company Ash Grove Cement Company is a cement manufacturer based in Overland Park, Kansas. It is the sixth largest cement manufacturer in North America, and was the largest US-owned cement company until it was acquired in 2018 by CRH plc, a global build ...

plant in nearby

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

. It one of Baker County's largest private employers. Durkee was originally a stage stop called Express, and by the 1860s it was the only transfer point between

Umatilla, Oregon Umatilla (, ) is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. The population in 2010 was 6,906, but the city's population includes approximately 2,000 inmates incarcerated at Two Rivers Correctional Institution. Umatilla is part of the ...

, and

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...

. It prospered as a

water stop A water stop or water station on a railroad is a place where steam trains stop to replenish water. The stopping of the train itself is also referred to as a "water stop". The term originates from the times of steam engines when large amounts of ...

and

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

station for the railroad, and later as a stop on Highway 30, the only paved road in the area. The community was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

ted in 1908, even though the population had already peaked.

Education

In 1969 the local school had nine students.
Clipping
from

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

References

External links

* {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Baker County, Oregon Populated places established in the 1860s 1860s establishments in Oregon Unincorporated communities in Oregon