Olene is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Klamath County,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, United States. The community is southeast of

Klamath Falls Klamath Falls ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Klamath County, Oregon, United States. The city was originally called ''Linkville'' when George Nurse founded the town in 1867. It was named after the Link River, on whose falls the city wa ...

Oregon Route 140 Oregon Route 140 (OR 140) is a State highway#United States, state highway in southern Oregon, United States. It is the longest List of highway route numbers in Oregon, state highway in Oregon, running from the community of White City, Oregon ...

. Olene currently has a general store and at one time it had a school.

History

In 1940 Olene had a population of 62 and was considered a suburb of Klamath Falls. Olene was the center of a prosperous dairy and potato farming district. According to

William Gladstone Steel William Gladstone Steel (September 7, 1854 – October 21, 1934) was an American journalist who was known for campaigning for 17 years for the United States Congress to designate Crater Lake as a National Park. Steel was from Ohio, and worked in ...

, ''Olene'' is a Klamath word meaning "eddy place" or "place of drift." O. C. Applegate adopted the word for the site in 1884 when the post office was established. The original Olene post office was up the Lost River from the current townsite. When the post office closed in 1966, it was near The Gap, a restriction in the Lost River. This gap is also known as Olene Gap, and the Olene Hot Springs are nearby. The community was along a rail line operated jointly by

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names ...

and

Burlington Northern The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroad ...

. Today the OC&E Woods Line State Trail, a

rails to trails A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corridor with active railways, ligh ...

conversion, passes through Olene. Originally built by the Oregon, California and Eastern Railway, the railroad line reached Olene in 1918. A geothermal drilling project near Olene was completed in early 2013, and the temperature produced by that well was in excess of .
"Second Geothermal Well in the Works in Olene Area". Global Geothermal News. Retrieved October 14, 2013. Plans included drilling two or three more wells for a commercial-scale power plant, with a planned electrical capacity of 21 MWe.

References

External links

Historic image of Olene Store
from

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

Unincorporated communities in Klamath County, Oregon Unincorporated communities in Oregon Oregon placenames of Native American origin {{KlamathCountyOR-geo-stub