The Wheeler post office opened in 1910, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1913. Another post office, Vosburg (1901), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
First census: 280 in 19302020 census: 422116 years
Founding year: the first Wheeler post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1913.The full story ↓
What stands out about Wheeler’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
In 1900, Coleman Wheeler and others incorporated the Wheeler Lumber Company and the Nehalem Transportation Company. The C.H. Wheeler barge was launched in the same year and sunk, with a loss of life, in 1901.
A Tillamook Observer article from September 1913 touts the town's founding, the riches of the Wheeler Lumber Company, and says the Union Fishermans Cooperative Packing Company was "employing only white labor".
Passages that mention Wheeler, cut from the printed page as they were published.
An illustrated history of central Oregon, embracing Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, Wheeler, Crook, Lake and Klamath counties, state of Oregon1905 · page 645Read the page →
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-of Wheeler county, and shall thereafter be recognized and acknowledged as the offical records of Wheeler county; provided the clerk of Wheeler county shall be allowed to bid on such work.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
An illustrated history of central Oregon, embracing Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, Wheeler, Crook, Lake and Klamath counties, state of Oregon1905 · page 121Read the page →
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Another large slice of territory was lost to this county by the legislative act of October 24, 1882. She gave up what is now Crook county and that portion of Wheeler county lying south of the John Day river. To Wasco county was then left the territory now embraced in Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam and the northern part of Wheeler counties. The new Crook county con-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Wheeler, 1901 to 1937
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 the Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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