Village can be yours for $3.5M
Nearly all of Ore. town on block
In the tiny, dying timber town of Tiller, Ore., the old cliche is true. If you blink, you might miss it.
But these days, this dot on a map in the southwestern part of the state is generating big-city buzz for an unlikely reason: Almost the entire town is for sale.
The asking price of $3.5 million brings with it six houses, the shuttered general store and gas station, the land under the post office, undeveloped parcels, water rights and infrastructure that includes sidewalks, fire hydrants and a working power station.
Tiller Elementary School, a six-classroom building that closed in 2014, is for sale separately for $350,000.
Potential buyers have come forward, but are remaining anonymous, and backup offers are still being accepted.
The listing represents a melancholy crossroads for Tiller, a once-bustling logging outpost that sprang up after the turn of the last century deep in what is now the Umpqua National Forest, about 230 miles south of Portland.
The post office opened in 1902, and miners, loggers, ranchers and farmers flocked to the community along a pristine river.
By the 1940s and 1950s, there were three timber mills running.
Then, nearly three decades ago, logging on the federal forest lands that encircle Tiller came to a near standstill because of environmental regulations. The mills closed, and families moved away.
One longtime resident began buying up properties. When he died three years ago, the family owned much of the town.
Then the school closed and was up for sale, as well as a small market, and the man’s estate bought those too — and the potential became clear.
The listing includes more than 256 acres.
About 235 people still live in the unincorporated area around Tiller.
“Between the dying economy and the dying owners, Tiller became a new opportunity that had never been available before,” said Richard Caswell, executor of the estate.
“I started getting inquiries from all over the world, essentially, ‘What was it? And what could you do with it?’ It’s the buyer and their imagination that’s going to determine what Tiller can become.”
Said former resident Rosemary Klep, 72, “This town has been in dire straits for many, many years. But we loved growing up there. To us, it was a paradise.”