Myrtle Creek, Oregon
city in Oregon, USA
Myrtle Creek is a city in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 3,481 at the 2020 census.
History
Myrtle Creek was named for the groves of Oregon myrtle (also known as California laurel), growing nearby. A Myrtle Creek post office was established in 1854 with Lazarus Wright as postmaster. In 1862, Wright sold the land for a town site to John Hall, who laid out Myrtle Creek in 1865.
In 1868, Letitia Carson received a certificate of ownership for her homestead claim near Myrtle Creek, making her one of the first 71 people in the country to secure a claim under the Homestead Act. She was the only Black woman to do so in Oregon.
The city has two covered bridges. The first, Neal Lane Bridge, carries Neal Lane Road over South Myrtle Creek on the southeastern outskirts of the city. It was built in 1939.
“Myrtle Creek, Oregon” enters the record as city in Oregon, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Myrtle, Creek and Oregon can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Myrtle Creek, Oregon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Myrtle, Creek and Oregon provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q981114. VIAF identifies the subject as 139600304. The Library of Congress control number is n84009092. Authority coordinates are 43.027, -123.282. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1854, 1862 and 1865.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Myrtle Creek, Oregon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Myrtle Creek, Oregon primary sources, Myrtle Creek, Oregon archive and Myrtle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Myrtle Creek, Oregon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.