Wolf Creek 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 ...

Josephine County, Oregon Josephine County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 88,090. The county seat is Grants Pass. The county is probably named after a stream in the area called Josephine Creek, which in ...

, United States, just off

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

. There are a number of creeks in Oregon named Wolf Creek, after the

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

that were once abundant in the state. Wolf Creek post office was established 1882, while a railroad station called "Almaden" was located in the same place in 1883. The station was renamed to match the post office in 1888, and in 1895 the post office was renamed to "Wolfcreek" until 1951. The pioneer-era "Six Bit House" was an inn located on the

Applegate Trail The Applegate Trail was an emigrant trail through the present-day U.S. states of Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon used in the mid-19th century by emigrants on the American frontier. It was originally intended as a less dangerous alternative t ...

that passed through the Wolf Creek area long before it had a post office. The original Six Bit House was probably built in 1853, near a hairpin turn of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The inn went through several incarnations until the present Wolf Creek Tavern was built in about 1883. The site, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

, is now run by the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department as the

Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage Site Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage Site is a state park in the U.S. state of Oregon, administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. History The Wolf Creek Inn was built along the Applegate Trail in 1883 for Henry Smith, a local entrepre ...

and is the oldest continuously operating hotel in the state.

Climate

This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above . According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

system, Wolf Creek has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

, abbreviated ''Csb'' on climate maps.Climate Summary for Wolf Creek, Oregon
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References

External links

Historic images of Wolf Creek
from Salem Public Library Unincorporated communities in Josephine County, Oregon 1882 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1882 Unincorporated communities in Oregon {{JosephineCountyOR-geo-stub