Rice 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
Wasco County
Wasco County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,213. Its county seat is The Dalles. The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans, the Wasco, a Chinook tribe ...
, 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 ...
.
It is about northeast of
Dufur, near
Boyd Boyd may refer to:
Places Canada
* Boyd Conservation Area, a conservation area located northwest of Toronto, Ontario
* Boyd Lake (disambiguation)
United States
* Boyd County (disambiguation)
* Boyd, Indiana
* Boyd, Iowa
* Boyd, Kansas
* Bo ...
and
U.S. Route 197.
Rice was named for Horace Rice (1829-1915), an Oregon Trail pioneer who settled on upper
Fifteenmile Creek in the 1860s and who planted the first crop of
wheat
Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
in upland Wasco County.
When the
Great Southern Railroad
The Great Southern Railroad was a 41-mile short-line which interchanged with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, later the Oregon–Washington Railroad and Navigation Company (OWR&N), in The Dalles, Oregon, United States. The rail line ran ...
established a line into the area in 1905, Rice's name was given to the station near the confluence of Fifteenmile Creek and
Dry Creek.
grain elevator
A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...
run by the Rice-Union Elevator Company. According to the author of ''Oregon Geographic Names
''Oregon Geographic Names'' is a compilation of the origin and meaning of place names in the U.S. state of Oregon, published by the Oregon Historical Society. The book was originally published in 1928. It was compiled and edited by Lewis A. McArt ...
'', however, as of 1980 "there was little evidence of urban activity."
The historic Rice Cemetery is the burial place for several members of the Rice family.
References
External links
Image of grain elevator and warehouse in Rice from 2016
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Images of Rice
from Flickr
1905 establishments in Oregon
Populated places established in 1905
Unincorporated communities in Oregon
Unincorporated communities in Wasco County, Oregon
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