Union County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,196. Its county seat is La Grande.
La Grande is a city in Union County, Oregon, United States. Originally named "Brownsville," it was forced to change its name because that name was being used for a city in Linn County. Located in the Grande Ronde Valley, the city's name comes from an early French settler, Charles Dause, who often used the phrase "La Grande" to describe the area's beauty. The population was 13,082 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Union County. La Grande lies east of the Blue Mountains and southeast of Pendleton.
Union is a city in Union County, Oregon, United States. The population was 2,121 at the 2010 census. Union is the namesake of Union County.
Algoma is an unincorporated community on the east shore of Upper Klamath Lake, in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. It is about 8 miles (13 km) north of the city of Klamath Falls on U.S. Route 97. Algoma was named for the Algoma Lumber Company.
Alicel is an unincorporated community in the Sand Ridge area of the Grande Ronde Valley in Union County, Oregon, United States. It is northeast of La Grande on Oregon Route 82. It was a station on Union Pacific Railroad's Joseph branch, and in 1890 was named for Alice Ladd, wife of local resident Charles Ladd. Alicel was platted in 1890, and had a post office from 1890 until 1972.
Valsetz was an unincorporated community and timber company town in Polk County, Oregon, United States, west of Falls City in the Central Oregon Coast Range. It no longer exists.
Bridal Veil is a virtual ghost town located in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. It was established in the 1880s during a logging boom by a logging company as it harvested timber on nearby Larch Mountain to be a company mill town around a sawmill. It had a close relationship with the logging town of Palmer for the first 50 years of its history. As of November 2011, all that remains of the town is a post office and a cemetery. The site is located near the west end of the Columbia River Gorge.
Ellendale is a ghost town in Polk County, Oregon, United States, about two and a half miles west of Dallas. It was the first settlement in present-day Polk County by non-Kalapuyans. The community's name changed over the years, with the first post office in Polk County being opened in this locality as "O'Neils Mills" in 1850. The post office was renamed "Nesmiths" in 1850 and discontinued in 1852. The community was eventually renamed Ellendale.
Cornucopia is a ghost town built during the gold mining boom of the 1880s in Eastern Oregon, United States. The town was officially platted in 1886 and was a mining town with various levels of success until it was abandoned in 1942. It is now primarily a tourist attraction as a ghost town. It is located east of Baker City high in the mountains of Pine Valley almost due north of Halfway, Oregon, on Oregon Route 86.
The Grande Ronde Valley is a valley in Union County in northeastern Oregon, United States. It is surrounded by the Blue Mountains, and is drained by the Grande Ronde River. La Grande is its largest community. The valley is 35 miles (56 km) long, north to south, from Pumpkin Ridge to Pyles Canyon, and 15 miles (24 km) wide, east to west, from Cove to the Grande Ronde River's canyon. Its name, fittingly, means, "great circle."
Medical Springs is a rural unincorporated community in Union County, Oregon, United States. It is located near the southern extremity of Union County on Oregon Route 203, just outside Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. It is located twenty miles southeast of Union and twenty-four miles northeast of Baker City.
Lime is an unincorporated community and ghost town in Baker County, Oregon, United States, 5 miles (8 km) north of Huntington on U.S. Route 30/Interstate 84. It is near the confluence of Marble Creek and the Burnt River on the Union Pacific Railroad. The Oregon Trail passes through Lime.
Orodell, also known as Oro Dell, is an unincorporated historic community in Union County, Oregon, United States, on the Grande Ronde River at the northwest edge of La Grande. It is considered a ghost town. Either Charles Fox or Stephen Coffin started the first sawmill in the Grande Ronde Valley there in the summer of 1862, after a joint-stock company between Coffin and other local settlers failed to materialize in 1861.
Starkey is an unincorporated community in Union County, Oregon, United States, about 26 miles southwest of La Grande. It is about two miles south of Oregon Route 244 in the Blue Mountains.
Hilgard is an unincorporated community in Union County, Oregon, United States, at the junction of Oregon Route 244 with Interstate 84/U.S. Route 30, near the Grande Ronde River. It is also the site of a junction (wye) of the Union Pacific Railroad. Hilgard Junction State Recreation Area is across the river from the community.
Nibley is an unincorporated historic community in Union County, Oregon, United States, about 11 miles east of La Grande on Oregon Route 237 in the Grande Ronde Valley.
Perry is an unincorporated community in Union County, Oregon, United States. It is located five miles west of La Grande on the Grande Ronde River and Interstate 84. The town was originally named Stumptown, but was later renamed in honor of an early railroad dispatcher in La Grande.
Truman Wesley Collins was an American businessman, civic leader, and philanthropist from the state of Oregon. He was born into a wealthy and influential business family. Collins graduated from Willamette University and then attended graduate school at Harvard University. After college, he returned to the Pacific Northwest to join his family's lumber business. Over the years, he was the top executive for a number of Collins family businesses. He was also an active leader in several timber-related industry groups and contributed to selected education and religious institutions.
