Gilchrist, Oregon: The Model Company Town

Gilchrist, Oregon: The Model Company Town by John C. Driscoll. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780984078417.

Gilchrist, established in 1938, is Oregon’s most recently constructed company town and is also one of the most successful towns of its type ever established. Gilchrist was Oregon’s first town which was entirely plumbed and wired for electricity at the time of its founding. It was also Oregon’s first town to have its houses and businesses equipped with a dial telephone system. Oregon’s first mall, perhaps the first mall in the in the United States, was build in Oregon by the Gilchrist Timber Company. It was designed and decorated in a style known as Norwegian Modern. The town was constructed with amenities which were often not found in larger communities. Gilchrist, following its construction, was routinely described as a wonder town. Gilchrist was the culmination of decades of experience the gained by the Gilchrist family constructing and then operating a succession of communities for its employees and their families. Each one afforded it residents amenities that exceeded those found in its predecessor. The Gilchrist camps, as was the case with Gilchrist Oregon, provided employees of the Gilchrist family’s timber company with access to housing that was equal or superior to residences available in neighboring towns and which rented at rates below the prevailing market price. Company houses were one of the aspects of the Gilchrist family’s management practices and leadership which resulted in a work force whose average time with the company was measured in decades.