RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Oregon >> Wasco County >> FriendIndex...

Welcome to Friend ...

So far, we found very little information about Friend. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Friend to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Friend, please Contact Us.

Friend would have been located within present day Wasco County<2>.

Friend was established in 1903.

The origin (or the toponymy) of Friend: Named after George J. Friend, an early settler in this area who had the first post office on his homestead.

While the community is gone, the present day location for Friend is 2,440 feet [744 m] above sea level.<3> In other words, the altitude of Friend is about ½ mile above sea level.

Time Zone: The area where Friend was located is in the Pacific Time Zone (PST/PDT) and observes daylight saving time

The Area Codes where Friend was located: 541 & 458<4>

Communities Also Named Friend ...

Using our Gazetteer, we found that there are 6 communities that are also named Friend - they are located in Colorado, Kansas (2), Nebraska, New York and Virginia.

For more information, see our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Friend.

Communities near Friend ...

We have created a list of 10 communities that are near Friend.

To Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

We have a couple of sections for those tracing their genealogy.

We created a list of cemeteries that are in the area around Friend. Our list includes the location of those cemeteries and we provide an overhead view. See our Cemetery List for Friend.

Using the information from an 1895 Atlas, we've created a list of communities that were in the area of Friend. Our list includes information such as whether the 1895 community had a post office or railroad service. See our List of 1890's Communities around Friend.

We also have a detailed list of newspapers that have been published in the area around Friend. See our Newspapers Page for Friend.

Adding Friend to Our Gazetteer ...

We originally found mention of Friend in both the FIPS-55 and the GNIS. For more information, see the FIPS and GNIS Codes sections on our Miscellaneous Page.

From our notes, the earliest published mention we've found (so far) for Friend was in the document titled List of Post Offices from Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock.<6>

From that list, the Friend post office opened in 1903. The Friend post office closed in 1979.

For more details, see References and Mentions for Friend.

Footnotes ...

<1>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Friend, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>If you're interested in how the shape of Oregon's counties, including Wasco, have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.
<3>The elevation is an estimate for the area around Friend - it will be higher in some places and lower in others.
<4>When there's a risk of an area code running out of phone numbers, an 'Overlay Area Code' is created that has the same geographic boundaries as the existing area code. In this case, the 541 code has been Overlayed with the 458 area code. New phone numbers in the Friend area will be assigned with one of these codes: 541 or 458. As a result, placing a call in the Friend area will require 10-digit dialing (where you enter both the area code and then the phone number).
<5>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<6>A copy of the Blevins & Helbock Post Office list with background information can be found at:

      https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/data-biography/