North Powder Oregon

Ski Anthony Lakes, near the town of North Powder, offers dry powder that makes downhill skiing outstanding. (Photo courtesy of Ski Anthony Lakes).

The community of North Powder was incorporated in 1902. By that time there were twelve businesses, three churches, a local school and a newspaper called the Powder Valley Echo. For more than forty years, there was an ice plant in North Powder that harvested from 8,000 to 15,000 tons of ice from an artificial lake each winter. Until it burned in 1937, the ice plant served the needs of the Pacific Fruit and Express Company, providing ice for the rail cars that shipped their products to market.

Major industries in North Powder are timber and agriculture. The community is at the heart of a recreational area that includes Pilcher Creek Reservoir, Wolf Creek Reservoir, and Thief Valley Reservoir, where Rainbow Trout measure up to eighteen inches. Camping, skiing and snowmobiling abound, and the Anthony Lakes Ski Resort is only nineteen miles into the Elkhorn Ridge of the Blue Mountains.