Sitkum, Oregon

Sitkum is an unincorporated community in Coos County, Oregon, United States.[1] It is about 27 miles north of Remote in the Southern Oregon Coast Range on near the East Fork Coquille River.[2] Sitkum is served by the Myrtle Point post office.

A tavern or roadhouse was established as a stagecoach stop near a point halfway between Roseburg and Coos City on the Coos Bay Wagon Road about 1872 or 1873.[3][4] A competitor put up another halfway house nearby and the name Sitkum, a Chinook Jargon word for "half", was selected for the place.[3] Sitkum post office took its name from the tavern.[3] It ran from 1873 to 1964, with one intermission.[3] The Halfway House at Sitkum was a combination restaurant, tavern, rooming house, post office and telegraph station where travelers stopped while horses were changed.[4] There is little left of the community today, and the Sitkum School was converted into a residence.[4] The former teacher's house and the gym still exist on the grounds.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Sitkum". Geographic Names Information System, U.S. Geological Survey. November 28, 1980. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:1127009. Retrieved 2011-01-11. 
  2. ^ Oregon Atlas & Gazetteer (7th ed.). Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme. 2008. p. 52. ISBN 0-89933-347-8. 
  3. ^ a b c d McArthur, Lewis A.; McArthur, Lewis L. (2003) [First published 1928]. Oregon Geographic Names (7th ed.). Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press. p. 883. ISBN 9780875952772. OCLC 53075956. 
  4. ^ a b c d Friedman, Ralph (1990). In Search of Western Oregon (2nd ed.). Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd. pp. 225–226. ISBN 0-87004-332-3. http://books.google.com/books. 

External links

Municipalities and communities of Coos County, Oregon, USA
Cities
CDPs
Unincorporated
communities