Weatherby 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 Baker 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. It is about southeast of Durkee on Interstate 84/

U.S. Route 30 U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route of the United States Numbered Highway System, with the highway traveling across the Northern U.S. With a length of , it is the third-longest U.S. Highway, afte ...

, near the Burnt River. There was a post office named Express Ranch established in 1865 near what is now Durkee during the

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...

boom in the county. C. W. Durkee was the first postmaster. It was so-named because it was a stopover for

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

es or "expresses", while the term "ranch" in this case probably came from the Spanish ''rancho'', a term for a place of lodging popular with the miners who had gone there from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It had nothing to do with the pursuit of

ranch A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of landscape, land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often ap ...

ing. The name of the office was changed to Weatherby in 1879 and at the same time it was moved south on the Burnt River to the property of Andrew J. Weatherby, who was also the first postmaster. In 1884, the

Oregon Railway and Navigation Company The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a Rail transport company, rail and Steamboats of the Columbia River, steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of running east from Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, United ...

established a Weatherby station on its line to Huntington. Weatherby post office closed in 1920. Meanwhile, an office was reestablished at the Express Ranch site in 1884 and named Express. The name of that office was changed to Durkee around 1902. Weatherby is the site of an

Oregon Department of Transportation The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is a department of the state government of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for systems of transportation. It was first established in 1969. It had been preceded by the Oregon State Highway De ...

rest area. There was formerly a state historic park north of Weatherby called Rattlesnake Springs that commemorated a stop along the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

. It was displaced by the construction of I-84. During the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse, an estimated 300 cars were parked at the Weatherby

rest area A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, Limited-access road, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names ...

on I-84 while visitors observed the event. The path of totality intersected with I-84 at Weatherby.

References

External links

Roadcam at Weatherby rest area on I-84
from

Images of historic markers at Weatherby rest area
from Flickr, including image of Rattlesnake Springs plaque
Images of Weatherby
from Flickr Unincorporated communities in Baker County, Oregon 1865 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1865 Unincorporated communities in Oregon {{BakerCountyOR-geo-stub