Page Contents for Halfway, Oregon

Statistics & Facts

History & History-related items

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Statistics & Facts

The Oregon state capital is Salem.
The population of Halfway is approximately 311 (1990), 288 (2010).
The approximate number of families is 189 (1990), 153 (2010).
The amount of land area in Halfway is 0.65 sq. kilometers.
The amount of surface water is 0 sq kilometers.
The distance from Halfway to Washington DC is 2239 miles.
The distance to the Oregon state capital is 313 miles. (as the crow flies)
Halfway is positioned 44.87 degrees north of the equator and 117.10 degrees west of the prime meridian.

History & History Related Items

In the spring of 1878, a mail route was established from Sparta, Oregon. The first mail was carried by horseback, serving post offices at Brownlee on the Idaho side of the Snake River and Pine and Eagle Valleys in Oregon.

In Pine Valley, A.P. Greener was the first postmaster and the office was in his home. For two or three years, one trip was made with a carrier on each side of the river. Greener gave up his job as postmaster to Doc Leep and the post office was moved to the Leep farm. Then Joseph Bragg, formerly of Brownlee, became Pine's postmaster andmoved to the lower end of the valley.

As the gold supply at Sparta dwindled, more folks moved to Pine Valley. A store and hotel were built above Pine in 1883, so Bragg moved his post office to Pine. Gold was discovered in 1884 at Cornucopia and in 1885, a post office was set up there. This meant that both ends of the valley had post offices, but the people in between were dissatisfied.

Alex Stalker, who lived about halfway between Pine and Cornucopia, put in a store at his farm and residents petitioned for a new post office to be located there and named Midway. Postal Officials informed the citizens that the name Midway already had been applied to a town near Portland. They offered the name Halfway - a choice which seemed to please everyone.

At the time of the naming, Halfway was in Union County, which had been split off from the original Baker County in 1864. The Panhandle country was returned to Baker County early in 1901.
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