Logging Ghost Towns

One-story, single room wood slat shack in dilapidated state. Windows and doors have fallen off or out.  It stands in a field.
An old shack is surrounded by sagebrush in the Baker County logging ghost town of Whitney. (Oregon State Archives, 2016)
Get a high resolution copy of the shack from the Oregon Scenic Images Collection​.
Logging played a key role in Oregon's economy and cultural identity beginning in the 1800s. Old growth trees provided plenty of logs and jobs for local lumber mills and a growing American population. But in the days before forest replanting, trees were often stripped from an area, leaving abandoned mills and towns. This section explores how logging often resulted in ghost towns.