Fort Rock 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 Lake 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, 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 (building), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Nguni homestead, a cluster of houses inhabited by a single extended family, typically with a kraal ...

period before

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

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

Community

The Fort Rock community is located approximately 1 mile southeast of Fort Rock State Natural Area. 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 disposa ...

had entered into a prospective purchaser agreement to reopen the store after performing needed underground storage tank (UST) cleanup. The store has reopened as of 2017. Fort Rock also has a community church, a Grange hall, 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. Today, the Fort Rock community is supported by alfalfa farming, cattle ranching, and tourism. As of 2023, the town’s population was estimated to be 134 people.Swisher, M.E. "Jack"
"Fort Rock (town)"
''Oregon Encyclopedia'', Portland State University and Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Oregon, 13 November 2023.

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, 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, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

climate with cold winters and warm summers featuring colder nights due to large diurnal temperature variations. 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