[or-roots] Oregon Ghost towns

[Leslie Chapman]

I was unaware that there were any significant number of folks left in some
of those "ghost" towns, but just checked Aurora, Shaniko and of course Drain
against my 1959 encyclopedia and the 2004 projected census for Oregon;
			1959			2004:
Aurora 	 	242	 		724
Drain  	    1,150		    1,033
Shaniko            61			 26


So obviously the idea of what makes a town a "ghost" town is somewhat
subjective. I believe in the case of Shaniko and possibly Aurora they may
have been signifcantly larger sometime in the 19th century, but I don't
believe Drain ever was.

Perhaps the person suggesting that Drain is a ghost town is basing that on
the fact that it used to be a major mill town, but only has one mill now I
believe. I don't know off the top of my head how much differance that make
exactly, but I know Gardiner lists as 500 people in 1959 and is not listed
on the 2004 Census, even though I believe it has over a hundred people still
living there. Actually it seems like there must be more than that as I know
most of the houses that were there in 1959 are still there.

I believe part of the "ghost" town classification applied to most of the
ones listed on that web site, which appears to be directly related to
"Oregon Ghost Towns" by Lambert Florin are so called that because of the
predominance of 19th century structures that are not currently occupied, or
are in "preservation" status, that is maintained for their age or as museums
etc. I would say by this definition Drain definitely doesn't qualify as I
beleive there are only half a dozen or so "old" buildings there. Gardiner on
the other hand has about that many buildings from late 19th or early 20th
century that my own family is directly connected to, and about half the
buildings in town are "historic" for one reason or another. But all of them
are occupied and most of them are still used for thier original purpose;
dwellings.

Les C