Fort Rock 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 ...

in Lake County,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, United States, southeast of Fort Rock State Natural Area.

History

The community of Fort Rock was named after the natural feature Fort Rock by the town's founder, Ray Nash. Fort Rock post office was established in 1908 under postmaster Josiah Thomas Rhoton. The Fort Rock Valley flourished briefly during the

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses *Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept th ...

period before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, but little remains in the area today. Fort Rock is one of two homestead-era communities remaining in the area, along with

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

Community

Fort Rock had a general store that was in operation since the early 1900s. The store, which also included a gas station, closed in May 2013. As of September 2014, the

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is the chief regulatory agency of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for protecting and enhancing the state's natural resources and managing sanitary and toxic waste disposal ...

had entered into a prospective purchaser agreement to reopen the store after performing needed

underground storage tank An underground storage tank (UST) is, according to United States federal regulations, a storage tank, including any underground piping connected to the tank, that has at least 10 percent of its volume underground. Definition & Regulation in U.S. ...

(UST) cleanup. The store has reopened as of 2017. Fort Rock also has a community church, a

Grange hall The Grange, officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and ...

, a restaurant and a tavern. The Rock View Apartments burned down in 2012; the land on which the apartments was located was owned by the Fort Rock Care Center, which planned to donate it to the Fort Rock Historical Society in 2013. The senior apartments were only six years old when they burned.

Museum

Today, many of the buildings in Fort Rock are part of the Fort Rock Valley Historical Society's

Fort Rock Valley Historical Homestead Museum The Fort Rock Valley Historical Homestead Museum is located in Fort Rock, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1988, it is a collection of original homestead-era (early 1900s) buildings including a church, school, houses, homestead cabins, and several ...

, which is a collection of homestead-era buildings moved there from the surrounding area, starting in 1988. The museum was created by the Fort Rock Valley Historical Society to preserve historic buildings that were in danger of being razed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

or were being vandalized in their remote locations. Buildings include a church, a log cabin, a doctor's office, a school, a land office, and several other cabins and houses.

Climate

Fort Rock has a dry-summer

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

climate with cold winters and warm summers featuring colder nights due to large

diurnal temperature variations In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day. Temperature lag Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak da ...

. Freezing temperatures can occur at any time of the year. There are on average 260 days annually where the temperature reaches at or below freezing (8 of them in July).

References

External links

Historic photos of Fort Rock, Oregon
from Salem Public Library

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lake County, Oregon 1908 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1908 Unincorporated communities in Oregon