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History · Prospect

Prospect’s post office opened in 1889, and 1 of its places is on the National Register

Most of Prospect was built recently: 6% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1979. Its Register listing is the Prospect Hotel. Below: 1 old photo or paper.

1889first post office
1on the National Register
6%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Prospect’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Prospect began

When was Prospect founded?

1889

The Prospect post office opened in 1889, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Deskins (1882), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 449137 years
Founding year: the first Prospect post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Prospect’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Prospect’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Prospect’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Date a photo1 archive item has no date. Guess the decade.+2Retake an old viewUnion Creek Water Tower, West Side of S…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Prospect came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Prospect.

Read it all →

Prospect began as a logging town; its first sawmill began operating in 1870. Prospect had a post office established in 1882 that was first named "Deskins" after the first postmaster. In 1888, there was a mill named Deskins Sawmill. The name of the community was changed to "Prospect" in 1889 because of plans made to run a railroad up the Rogue River, which would ostensibly improve the community's prospects.

The Prospect Hotel, which opened in 1892, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Prospect, 1882 to 1889

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1882Post officeThe Deskins post office opens
  3. 1889Post officeThe Deskins post office closes
  4. 1889Post officeThe Prospect post office opens
By decade

Prospect, decade by decade

Date unknown1 to date
Union Creek Water Tower, West Side of State Highway 62Date?Union Creek Water Tower, West Side of State Highway 62
Today1 recent
Prospect Hotel Oregon2010Prospect Hotel Oregon
Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Union Creek Water Tower, West Side of State Highway 62
Retake this viewUnion Creek Water Tower, West Side of State Highway 62

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Prospect’s page.

Retake this view · +15
On the National Register

1 historic place in Prospect

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
8
each building in a district counts
first listed
1980
Prospect Hotel
Prospect Hotel
Buildings
Prospect HotelBuilding

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices, places now gone and burying grounds

Prospect’s post office has been open since 1889. Another post office, Deskins, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Deskins
1882–1889
Prospect
1889–today
18801950today
Gone or out of use
Oakridge Schoolschool
1cemetery inside Prospect
Aiken Family Plot

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Prospect’s history

What year was Prospect founded?

The Prospect post office opened in 1889, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Prospect?

One place: the Prospect Hotel (listed 1980).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), the Library of Congress (1), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.