Sisters
Deschutes County, 97759
A Modern Western Community
Sisters is a colorful place, brightly lit by the blazing central Oregon sun. Like many western towns the area has seen ups and downs. In 1888 the government moved a post office to this location. The name of the former location, Camp Polk, did not seem to fit. The new moniker pays tribute to the beautiful Cascade mountain peaks rising just to the south. I am not sure Sisters every really had a boom time, but logging and ranching paid the way for many years. By the late 1980's the timber industry virtually disappeared, however, victim of the spotted owl crusade. Ranching alone could not pay the way. The good citizens did not give up, they simply rebranded the town. It is now the most "western" town in Oregon. In the late 1980's pickup trucks and hay trailers lined the main street. Once when we stopped at a restaurant to eat Glennette and I noticed that we wore the only tennis shoes in the place. Everyone except us wore cowboy boots, even the girls! And several guys at the counter had a strange mixture of straw and some brown stuff in their spurs. The successful re-branding campaign changed all of that. Most of the cowhands are "all hat" now, but the town is lively. The sidewalks are crowded with tourists and traffic jams the streets. I don't like the new Sisters as well as the old one, but I am sure the locals appreciate the income. And there are now more locals. From a polulation of about 900 in the year 2000 Sisters has grown to about 1800 residents now.