Local city information for Bandon, OR

Bandon () is a city in Coos County, Oregon, United States, on the south side of the mouth of the Coquille River. It was named by George Bennet, an Irish peer, who settled nearby in 1873 and named the town after Bandon, Ireland, his native home. The population was 2,833 at the 2000 census. The 2007 estimate is 3,235 residents.

Before 1850, the Coquille Indians lived in the area. Then in 1851, gold was discovered at nearby Whiskey Run Beach by French Canadian trappers, though the gold rush didn't have much of an impact on the area. In 1852, Henry Baldwin, from Cork County, Ireland, was shipwrecked on the Coos Bay bar and walked into this area. The first permanent settlers came in 1853 and established the present town site. In 1856, the first conflicts with Native Americans arose and the Native Americans were sent to the Siletz Reservation. In 1859, the boat Twin Sisters sailed into the Coquille River and opened the outlet for all inland produce and resources.

Bandon was founded by the Irish peer George Bennett in 1873. George Bennett, his sons Joseph and George, and George Sealey came from Bandon, Ireland. The following year the town's previous name of Averille was changed to Bandon after the town of the same name in Ireland. The next year, Joseph Williams and his three sons arrived, also from Bandon, Ireland. In 1877, the post office was established. In 1880, cheese making began. That same year, Congress appropriated money to build the jetty. In 1883, the first sawmill, school house, and Catholic church were built. In 1884, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the jetty.

George Bennett also introduced gorse (Ulex europaeus) into the local area, which in the following decades went wild and became a nuisance in both the town and in the neighboring countryside. Gorse, a spiny plant, grows so thickly a person can't walk through it. It's a very oily plant. If a fire strikes, the gorse flares up quickly.

Cranberries have been grown in Bandon since 1885, when Charles McFarlin planted vines he brought from Massachusetts. McFarlin had originally come to pan for gold in California. He didn't make his fortune, or even a living, so he turned to what he knew best. He brought vines from Cape Cod and planted them in the state's first cranberry bog near Hauser. This bog produced cranberries for eight decades. His variety adapted to growing conditions on the west coast. The variety was named McFarlin in his honor and is still the principal variety grown on the west coast.

On September 26, 1936, embers blown from a nearby slash fire of a logging crew inflamed gorse growing inside Bandon, and ignited a fire inside the city, causing massive destruction. Bandon's entire commercial district was destroyed. The total loss stated at the time was three million dollars, with 11 fatalities. Stewart Holbrook vividly described this conflagration in his essay "The Gorse of Bandon".

Part of the commercial district had been erected on wooden pilings jutting out over the Coquille River not far from the South Jetty, accommodating river traffic at the merchants' doors. After the 1936 fire, when Bandon began to be rebuilt, the new perimeter of the business district did not extend beyond the available land.

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