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| Valsetz: Gone but not forgotten |
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| Ivy Van Epps answered the telephone and heard a neighbor's greeting on the other end. The phone call from the neighbor was typical, but the message was not.
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By Jillian Beaudry
Ivy Van Epps answered the telephone and heard a neighbor's greeting on the other end. The phone call from the neighbor was typical, but the message was not.
It was Dec. 12, 1983, and Ivy was told that the town she lived in, Valsetz, would be closed along with the mill operated by Boise Cascade.
Ivy had moved to Valsetz in 1952 as a newlywed and raised two children in their home on a small cul-de-sac. After hearing the news, she cried often. Ivy said she never planned to leave her home.
"It was a security blanket, and then all of a sudden they closed us down," she said.
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July marks the 25th anniversary of the closure and demolition of Valsetz, the mill town that housed a small, close-knit community for more than 60 years.
Boise Cascade cited years of financial losses and little room for growth as the reason for closure.
The plywood mill was closed on Feb. 24, 1984. Families of the 60 children still in school stayed behind, but most of the 200 residents left. The company had sent letters announcing all residents must evacuate by June 30 that year as the company town would be demolished and burned.
According to a story in The Oregonian in 1984, one fifth of the workforce stayed on payroll through March to tear their old workplace apart.
The mill was burned to the ground on April 19, 1984, after workers finished demolishing it. It took three hours to reduce it to a 30-foot pile of rubbish.
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 | | | Valsetz rally girls |
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Six-year-old Chris Glode sat in the back of his family's green pickup one month before Valsetz was demolished. The Glodes were from Falls City, 10 miles away, and often went fishing in the tributaries of the Luckiamute River and visited the little company town.
Chris could tell this trip was different. He said he remembered driving through Valsetz watching his parents Dan and Leslie shaking their heads and talking in concerned voices.
"I remember it being important," Chris said. "You can remember the emotions of your parents as a kid."
Peering out the window of the green pickup while his parents toured the many empty homes is the last memory he has of Valsetz.
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Life had changed drastically for Ivy in the months leading up to the town's closure. Her family had purchased a plot of land near Sheridan and worked furiously each weekend to build a new home before the June 30 deadline.
Before, the homemaker had spent her days doing housework, yardwork and gabbing with the girls at the Rec Hall. Now, her family was going through already-emptied houses pulling up rugs and dismantling windows and plumbing to build their Sheridan home. And more than 25 years ago, on May 14, 1984, Ivy left Valsetz for her new home where she has lived since.
"We've been here 25 years and this is home now," she said.
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Jo Broadus graduated from Valsetz High School in 1959 and later moved to Salem to attend business school. She was living in Dallas in 1984 with her husband, Darrell, whose parents still lived in the company town.
Jo said her husband's parents lived in Valsetz up to the last moment they could. He helped them move their things to a new home in Monmouth.
"The (workers) were practically tearing the house down around them as they were moving their things out," Jo said.
Since the demolition and burning that took place in July 1984, Jo said she has not wanted to visit the site of where the town was.
"We had a lot of good memories," Jo said. "I remember it the way it was -- I just chose not to go back up there."
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However, many do choose to explore the area. Glode said he traveled up to the old Valsetz site last year, hoping to fill in the gaps in his memory. All he found were concrete slabs and orchards.
Many Valsetzers and past mill workers meet every year for the annual Valsetz reunion. Sharon Koloen, a Valsetzer who left in 1955, said the turnout is always impressive at the reunion the first Saturday of each August in Falls City Park.
"(The park) is the closest (to Valsetz) that we can get," Sharon said.
The group swaps memories of the frightening gravel road that led to the town, sledding and eating hot dogs on snowy days, never-ending rainfall, the Hunter's and Fisherman's Balls, and hanging out at the soda fountain, theater and bowling alley.
Despite Boise Cascade destroying a town that existed since the 1920s, pride is still present in its residents.
Chris said the pride stems from the violation felt by the closure.
"They have something and (Boise Cascade) takes it away from them," he said. "They were no longer welcomed there. People persevered through the rainy weather and worked hard."
Sharon said Valsetz was a unique community in how close all of the neighbors were.
"It was a real close-knit community," Sharon said. "People moved there and stayed a long time -- they didn't even lock their doors."
And though many wish the company would have made the town into a museum or left something behind, there are no regrets.
"The closeness that we felt up there was (unique)," Ivy said. "Valsetz is a place we will always have a connection with. That's where my ashes will go -- that's where I spent my best years."
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