Prineville, Oregon
Encyclopedia
Prineville is a city in and the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Crook County
Crook County, Oregon
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 19,182 people, 7,354 households, and 5,427 families residing in the county. The population density was 6 people per square mile . There were 8,264 housing units at an average density of 3 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...

. It was named for the first merchant located in the present location, Barney Prine. The population was 9,253 at the 2010 census.

History

Prineville was founded in 1877 when Monroe Hodges filed the original plat
Plat
A plat in the U.S. is a map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. Other English-speaking countries generally call such documents a cadastral map or plan....

 for the city. The post office for the community had been established with the name of Prine on April 13, 1871, but changed to Prineville on December 23, 1872. The city was incorporated by the Oregon Legislative Assembly
Oregon Legislative Assembly
The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the House of Representatives, with 60 members elected to...

 on October 23, 1880, and obtained its first high school in 1902.

Long the major town in central Oregon, Prineville was snubbed in 1911 when the railroad tycoons James J. Hill
James J. Hill
James Jerome Hill , was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest...

 and Edward H. Harriman bypassed the city as they laid track south from The Dalles
The Dalles, Oregon
The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is the largest city and county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The name of the city comes from the French word dalle The Dalles is...

. In a period when the presence of a railroad meant the difference between prosperity and the eventual fate as a ghost town
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

, in a 1917 election, Prineville residents voted 355 to 1 to build their own railway, and raised the money to connect their town to the main line 19 miles (30.6 km) away.

Helped by timber harvests from the nearby Ochoco National Forest
Ochoco National Forest
The Ochoco National Forest is located in Central Oregon in the United States, north and east of the City of Prineville, location of the National Forest Headquarters. It encompasses of rimrock, canyons, geologic oddities, dense pine forests, and high desert terrain, as well as the headwaters of...

, the City of Prineville Railroad prospered for decades. The profits from the railroad were so abundant that between 1964 and 1968, the city levied no property taxes. However, with the decline of the timber industry in Oregon, the railroad reported a loss of nearly $1 Million between 2002-04 http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/cop.html.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the city has a total area of 6.7 square miles (17.4 km²), all land.

Prineville is located on the Crooked River
Crooked River (Oregon)
The Crooked River is a tributary, long, of the Deschutes River in the U.S. state of Oregon. The river begins at the confluence of South Fork Crooked River and Beaver Creek. Of the two tributaries, the South Fork Crooked River is the larger and is sometimes considered part of the Crooked River proper...

 at the mouth of Ochoco Creek
Ochoco Creek
Ochoco Creek is a tributary of the Crooked River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia River, it arises in the Ochoco National Forest in Wheeler County and flows generally southwest and west for most of its length through Crook County to slightly northwest of...

, 14 miles (22.5 km) northwest of the Prineville Reservoir
Prineville Reservoir
The Prineville Reservoir is located in the high desert hills of Central Oregon, Oregon, United States. The reservoir is on the Crooked River located southeast of Prineville, OR, and east of Bend, Oregon . This reservoir is a popular retreat for most of Central Oregon...

.

During the Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

 and Oligocene
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...

, great basaltic flows swept through the area.

Demographics

As of the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 7,356 people, 2,817 households, and 1,907 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 1,105.9 people per square mile (427.1/km²). There were 3,022 housing units at an average density of 454.3 per square mile (175.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 91.80% White, 0.01% African American, 1.50% Native American, 0.73% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 4.50% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...

, and 1.44% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.42% of the population.

Of the 2,817 households, 35.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.4% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 11.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.3% were non-families. 27.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.09.

In the city the population was spread out with 29.3% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 27.0% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 93.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.0 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $30,435, and the median income for a family was $36,587. Males had a median income of $31,224 versus $22,852 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the city was $14,163. About 10.0% of families and 14.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.6% of those under age 18 and 13.1% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Les Schwab Tire Centers
Les Schwab Tire Centers
Les Schwab Tire Centers is a tire retail chain operating in the western United States. Founded in 1952, The company is named for founder Les Schwab and is headquartered in the Central Oregon city of Bend. The private company employs over 7,000 people in eight western states...

, a chain of tire stores based in Prineville, has been associated with the city since the company's founding in 1952. As of 2005, the Les Schwab Tire Center chain operates more than 390 stores in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

, Oregon, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, and Washington, does more than $1.5 billion in sales each year, and, according to the AP
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

, is the number two private tire retailer in the United States. The company announced December 12, 2006, that it would be moving the corporate headquarters to nearby Bend, where a growing number of its executives live, including Dick Borgman who became CEO on the same day. In 2006, journalist Mike Rogoway noted:
A decade ago, Schwab could have devastated Prineville by pulling out. Now, though, the city that suffered through the downturn in the wood products industry is enjoying an economic renaissance. Federal jobs with the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

 and Forest Service help anchor the economy [Judge Scott Cooper, Crook County administrator, was quoted], while a housing boom and a growing tourism industry have diversified the area.


Prineville got its first Starbucks in 2006, and a plan was floated to reopen the city's long-shuttered movie theater. In December 2006, unemployment was 4.4 percent, the lowest since the 1960s.


In 2010, Prineville was selected as the location for a new data center for Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

. This center has been met with notable criticism from environmental groups such as Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 because the power utility company contracted for the center, PacifiCorp
PacifiCorp
PacifiCorp is an electric power company in the northwestern United States.PacifiCorp has three primary subsidiaries:# Pacific Power is a regulated electric utility with service territory throughout Oregon, northern California, and southeastern Washington.# Rocky Mountain Power is a regulated...

, generates 70% of its electricity from coal.

Media

Prineville Territory Magazine is a seasonal magazine covering the life and history of the Territory

The Central Oregonian
Central Oregonian
The Central Oregonian is a bi-weekly paper published in Prineville, Oregon, United States since 1881 and covering Central Oregon. It is published on Wednesdays and Saturdays by Eagle Newspapers and has a circulation of 2,976. It is the newspaper of record for Crook County....

is a bi-weekly newspaper published in Prineville.

A Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 Data Center is located in Prineville.

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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