Horse Heaven is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Jefferson County in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...
of
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 ...
. The settlement, which had a post office from 1938 to 1946, is east of
Madras
Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...
and east of
Ashwood.
According to a letter written in 1946 by the Horse Heaven postmaster, Frank E. Lewis, the name for the settlement stemmed from herds of horses that thrived on the local grasses and drank from unfenced
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season), a season of the year
* Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy
* Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water
* Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...
s. Mary E. Finnall, the first postmaster, received the Horse Heaven mail twice a week from Ashwood. Homesteaders settled in the general vicinity, but most had moved away by 1946, when the post office closed. Horse Heaven Mountain and Horse Heaven Creek take their name from the settlement.
After two men discovered
cinnabar
Cinnabar (; ), or cinnabarite (), also known as ''mercurblende'' is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of Mercury sulfide, mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining mercury (element), elemental mercury and is t ...
, an ore of
mercury, in the area in 1933, mercury production began there in 1934. Two years later, Horse Heaven Mines, a subsidiary of
Sun Oil Company
Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy company to a distributor of fuel ...
, took over and continued mining until 1944, when fire destroyed the ore-processing furnace, power plant, and other structures. The mine closed in 1945 but re-opened in 1955 with a new furnace. Much of the mine collapsed between then and 1958, when the mine closed again.
The Horse Heaven Mine site covers about . A seasonal residential cabin as well as outbuildings and historic structures related to the mining era are nearby. Most of the mining and processing equipment is gone. In 2005 the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality recommended remedial action involving mercury and
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...
in mine wastes at the site.
See also
*
Horse Heaven, Washington
Horse Heaven was an unincorporated community in Benton County, Washington, United States, located approximately 13 miles southeast of Prosser in Carter Canyon. The original community site has been abandoned, and most of it no longer remains.
...
*
List of ghost towns in Oregon
According to several historians, the United States, U.S. state of Oregon contains over 200 ghost towns. Professor and historian Stephen Arndt has counted a total of 256 ghost towns in the state, some well known, others "really obscure." The hig ...
References
External links
Horse Heaven Mine environmental clean-up site informationfrom
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 ...
{{Authority control
Ghost towns in Oregon
Populated places established in 1933
Unincorporated communities in Jefferson County, Oregon
1933 establishments in Oregon
Unincorporated communities in Oregon