Going Home to Valsetz - June 27th - June 29th, 2014
The magic is happening again. To mark the 30th anniversary of the demise of Valsetz, one-time residents are having a second three-day camp-out at the Valsetz town site.
Complete with food, live music, a documentary film about the town and the best view of the stars this side of the Mississippi, the 2014 reunion is set to be even better then the 2011 event.
Click here to fill out your registration forms for the 2014 reunion.
Complete with food, live music, a documentary film about the town and the best view of the stars this side of the Mississippi, the 2014 reunion is set to be even better then the 2011 event.
Click here to fill out your registration forms for the 2014 reunion.
Valsetz, Oregon - 1911 to 1984
For those not familiar with the story, the mill town of Valsetz lay 18 miles west of Falls City at the end of a rough gravel road. Founded in the early 1900s, Valsetz withstood fire, flood, wind and record-breaking rainfall only to be shut down by Boise Cascade in 1984 and leveled to the ground shortly afterward.
Valsetz since 1984
Scroll through the slides below to see how Valsetz has changed since 1984. Thank you, Google Earth.
Each summer in Falls City, former residents of Valsetz and their relatives gather in a park to commemorate the town and bring some of the characters and places back to live through the stories they tell and the photographs they carry like prized possessions. This was as close as they could get to the site of their home town, the city being sealed of by locked gates.
But in 2011, one former resident, Ken Jeske from Monmouth, approached the then owners of the town site, Forest Capital, and was granted permission to hold a three-day extravaganza in the town site in June of that year.
The event was better than anyone could have dreamed. Friends were reunited, parents showed their adult children where they had once lived as children. Laughter rang through the trees for three days solid, and many hearts were healed.
Read more about the 2011 reunion here.
But in 2011, one former resident, Ken Jeske from Monmouth, approached the then owners of the town site, Forest Capital, and was granted permission to hold a three-day extravaganza in the town site in June of that year.
The event was better than anyone could have dreamed. Friends were reunited, parents showed their adult children where they had once lived as children. Laughter rang through the trees for three days solid, and many hearts were healed.
Read more about the 2011 reunion here.