-- Douglas Perry

Oregon is a small state -- and so are many of its cities. In fact, the 2016 certified population estimate lists a dozen Oregon burghs with fewer than 150 year-round residents, including one that barely makes single digits. But while these towns are small, they have big stories to tell. They’ve come through booms and busts, quirks and calamities. They’re all survivors. Here’s what you need to know about the Beaver State’s tiniest cities...

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The Oregonian

Honorable mention: Dayville

Coming in at No. 11 on Oregon’s list of smallest cities is Dayville, with 150 residents. The Grant County town’s population has been rather steady through its 100-plus years, with the occasional dip here and there. In 2002, Dayville High School had only one senior. It was the first time that had ever happened at the school.

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The Oregonian

10: Idanha

“The new mountain resort is an ideal place for tourists,” boosters advertised in 1893, heralding the “gigantic fir trees” and the bounteous fishing and hunting opportunities. The ad noted that the town stood “at the east terminus of the Oregon Pacific railroad on the North Santiam river, 60 miles outside of Albany.” In the 1990s, the town lost its timber mill, a serious blow to the community. Once with a population exceeding 400, Idanha now has about 140 residents.

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The Oregonian

9. Summerville (tie)

The Union County outpost was a tough town in its early days; in 1908 a local correspondent informed Oregonian readers that a “drunken mob” had instituted “rough-house rules” in the burgh and “it is feared a serious outcome will result if the warring factions” don’t run out of whisky soon. A devastating fire swept through town the following year, sending it into decline. Summerville has had fewer than 200 residents since the 1920s. The population now stands at 135.

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The Barlow House

9. Barlow (tie)

Oregon Trail veterans in the mid-19th century understood that getting to the Willamette Valley would be much easier, a Barlow city webpage points out, "if only they could somehow carve a shortcut across Mt. Hood," allowing pioneers to "shorten the journey and bypass the [treacherous] Columbia River passage altogether." Hence Barlow Road and Barlow itself, a city of 135 souls southwest of Canby. The 1885 home of city founder William Barlow still stands.

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8. Monument (tie)

This town of 130 became known for a first-rate environmental-sciences program thanks to a dedicated local teacher. It also became known for its simple joys. "We don't have a lot of noise and smog, we have no shopping malls, no movie theater, no skating rink," a booster said in 2000. "What we do have is an abundance of outdoor recreation. Any day in the summer, you'll see every kid in town with a fishing pole heading down to the river. That river is full of kids every day."

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Sen. Mitchell

8. Mitchell (tie)

Two hours from Bend, this 126-year-old burgh with 130 residents bills itself as the "Gateway to the Painted Hills." The city was named for 19th-century Senator John H. Mitchell, arguably the most charismatic and corrupt politician in the state's history. Mitchell's legal name was actually John M. Hipple, which he gave up when he abandoned his wife and children in his native Pennsylvania to make his fortune in the country's western hinterlands.

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7. Unity

The Baker County town was created in 1891 when area ranchers needed a post office. It is proudly rural and remote -- and tiny. “You can zip through Unity in less than a minute,” The Oregonian wrote in 1994, and that is still the case. Unity lost about half its population when its lumber company left town more than 40 years ago, but ranching, farming and the Forest Service kept it alive and relevant. It now has 75 residents.

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The Oregonian

6. Prescott

The Columbia County city was founded as a mill town but later became known for the nearby Trojan Nuclear Plant, which faced regular protests and sit-ins. The controversial plant, wrote The Washington Post, "loomed in the region's imagination as a symbol of all that was sneaky, leaky and insanely expensive about nuclear power." It was demolished in 2006, more than a decade after being decommissioned. Prescott now boasts 55 residents.

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Antelope's century-old abandoned schoolhouse in 1971.

5. Antelope

The little Wasco County town is best known as the one-time home base for the red-robed Rajneesh cultists, who arrived in the early 1980s and tried to take over the county by busing in homeless people to vote -- and by keeping hundreds of legitimate voters from the polls through a food-poisoning attack in The Dalles. Antelope survived, the cult didn’t. There are now about 50 people living there.

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In 1982, the mountain hamlet made the news statewide when "Bud" Morrow," the town's beloved honorary marshal, was shot to death. A mother and daughter were convicted of the murder.

4. Granite

This former gold-mining town outside Baker City once had 5,000 residents. Then the boom went bust. By 1960, Granite was “the smallest incorporated town” in the U.S. That year’s census put the population at three, but within months the mayor had committed suicide and another town stalwart had pulled up stakes. That left a single resident -- 78-year-old Ote Ford. Ford refused to let Granite die, and the city’s population is now a seams-popping 40.

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Shaniko in the 1960s.

3. Shaniko

This former wool town, east of the Warm Springs reservation, is "Where the West Still Lives." It's also "a place to do nothing," a shop owner reportedly acknowledged. Except in August -- that's when Shaniko Days takes place, complete with a parade and gun-fight show. Shaniko lost most of its population when train service was discontinued in the 1940s. It now has about 35 residents.

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2. Lonerock

How do you get to bucolic Lonerock? Drive east of Condon, the Gilliam County website advises, and, after 20 miles, "look for the huge rock -- the town's namesake -- next to a sparkling [1898] Methodist church." Some people have made that drive recently and not come back. That is, population has almost doubled in the past two decades. The town now has 20 residents.

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Greenhorn gets spruced up in 1987.

1. Greenhorn

The eastern Oregon city, the state' highest at 6,306 feet, is often called a ghost town. But it officially has two residents (a couple), making it very much alive. The former gold-mining HQ does also have some occasional denizens who use it as an alpine getaway or a hunting launch pad -- when the road leading into it is clear of snow. In its heyday 100 years ago, Greenhorn boasted 500 citizens and two hotels. By 2008, its mayor admitted: "We are a zero tax-base city."

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Valerie Cornford, a descendent of Millican's founder, in the late 1980s.

Even smaller

No, Greenhorn isn’t a ghost town. But there are plenty such places in Oregon, outposts that lost their populations and were long ago left to nature and vandals. For example: Millican, east of Bend, is two-and-a-half acres of scrubland with a general-store building and a couple of cabins. It once had its own zip code, until it was reassigned to nearby Sunriver. The town has been empty for most of the past 30 years.

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The elderly Hobbs returns to Copperfield in the 1950s, long after the town had been abandoned.

Still more

One of the best known ghost towns in the state is Copperfield, where the diminutive Fern Hobbs, Gov. Oswald West's private secretary, declared martial law in 1914. Read more about Hobbs' excellent adventure.