Pine Grove, Hood River County, Oregon
Encyclopedia
Pine Grove is an unincorporated community
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in Hood River County
Hood River County, Oregon
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 20,411 people, 7,248 households, and 5,175 families residing in the county. The population density was 39 people per square mile . There were 7,818 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile...

, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on Oregon Route 35 in the middle Hood River Valley near Neal Creek. It is about five miles south of the city of Hood River
Hood River, Oregon
The city of Hood River is the seat of Hood River County, Oregon, United States. It is a port on the Columbia River, and is named for the nearby Hood River. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 5,831...

 and has a Hood River ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

.

History

Pine Grove was a station on the Mount Hood Railroad
Mount Hood Railroad
The Mount Hood Railroad is a heritage and shortline freight railroad located in Hood River, Oregon, east of Portland, Oregon, United States....

 and was named for a stand of timber that once existed at this locale. In 1886, German immigrant Peter Mohr planted 400 apple trees in the Pine Grove area, in what was probably the first commercial orchard in the Hood River Valley planted on dry land and relying solely on irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

. Pine Grove was also one of the primary communities in the Hood River Valley farmed by Nikkei
Japanese diaspora
The Japanese diaspora, and its individual members known as , are Japanese emigrants from Japan and their descendants that reside in a foreign country...

Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese migrants and their descendants.

Economy

Like much of Hood River County, the economy of Pine Grove is based on agriculture, especially fruit orchards and the accompanying storage and packing facilities. Businesses in the Pine Grove area include The Fruit Company, which packs and ships fruit gift baskets and gourmet food products, and Mount Hood Winery. Mount Hood Winery's cooperative winemaking facility is located in a former fruit-packing warehouse. Also located in Pine Grove is Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers, a non-profit organization of 400 growers and 20 shippers of tree fruit in the Mid-Columbia
Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range forming the boundary between the State of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south...

 area that works to encourage and promote the fruit industry. To preserve the history of the area's principal industry, in 2012 The Fruit Foundation Historical Society will be opening the Fruit Heritage Museum in Pine Grove in a historic cold storage and fruit packing facility built in the 1930s and now owned by the Fruit Company.

Historic structures

Pine Grove Grange celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2006. It is the oldest Grange in Hood River County. The current Grange hall originally served as a general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

 and the upstairs was a community dance hall. Today the Hood River Valley Playhouse uses the upstairs stage for its productions.

Pine Grove Methodist Church was dedicated in 1907 and still serves the community today.

The Martin and Carrie Hill House near Pine Grove is a 1910 Dutch Colonial Revival house on a working farm listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

Education

Pine Grove Elementary School is part of the Hood River County School District
Hood River County School District
The Hood River County School District is a public school district in Hood River County, Oregon, United States that serves the communities of Cascade Locks, Hood River, Odell, Pine Grove, and Parkdale....

. The current school was built in 1927 and has the original cast iron school bell in the cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

. The first school on the current school grounds was built in 1887 in the pine grove for which the community is named. The pine grove was cut down in 1957, but a group of students and alumni replanted pine trees around the school during a reunion in 2008.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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