Established in 1898, the community of Peak, Oregon, had a post office, a cedar shingle mill, and a school, which was also used as a church by the United Brethren.

In 1905, the town was large enough to construct a one-room school for the children. The log structure, chinked with moss, was roofed and sided with hand-split cedar shakes.

The community hired young, single teachers who boarded with local families to teach at Peak school, but teachers seldom stayed after their first year. The school term ran three months in the fall and three months in the spring.

Postcard from Peak, Oregon, showing Peak postmark. © BCHM 1983-097.0001.

School at Woods Creek in the fall of 1910. Woods Creek School was another one-room schoolhouse on Marys Peak.
©BCHM 1994-038.0661.

A Town Abandoned

By 1917, the Peak post office had closed. When the highway to Newport, Oregon, bypassed Peak, the community dwindled away.

Peak, Oregon, eventually became a ghost town, marked only by a twelve-grave cemetery.