Dee Oregon is an unincorporated former lumber company town in Hood River County, Oregon located about ten miles southwest of the community of Hood River. The Oregon Lumber Company established a sawmill at the site on the Middle Fork of Hood River in 1906. The lumber company was established by David Eccles. The firm acquired the site from the pioneer Winans family. Soon a large sawmill was constructed. Eccles also established the Mt. Hood Railroad which served the growing Hood River lumber community and adjacent fruit orchards.

The first workers at the mill lived in box cars until the company soon built a two-story hotel, a store, and small houses, all located on the east side of the Middle Fork. The developing town was named for Thomas Duncombe Dee, a stockholder and business associate of David Eccles. A post office was established and named Dee on Feb. 17, 1906. The first postmaster was Nels H. Nelson. The community was a station along Mount Hood Railroad.

Dee was a company town for mill workers and their families. The lumber company began extensive logging operations in the area. An adjacent region known as Dee Flat also became an established fruit orchard site after most of the timber had been removed. Some mill workers and Japanese immigrants established the orchards. The community peaked from 1910 to 1920 with a population of approximately 250. The company added a hardboard plant at the mill site in 1951.

The Hines Lumber Company purchased the mill and town property in 1958 and soon dismantled the remaining housing. The post office was discontinued on Dec. 31, 1959. A number of wood products industries operated at the site until Champion Paper closed the facility in 1984. A New Zealand firm reopened the mill in 1986 but a devastating fire burned the mill buildings in 1996 and the mill was permanently closed. Today not much is left of the once thriving logging community but it is a center for fruit production.

Contributed by Steve Lent, Historian