A Tale Of One City In Two States

The California-Oregon runs through the center of 250-person town of New Pine Creek. What happens when half your community lives in a different state?

1 minute read

June 27, 2005, 7:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"Thanks to a surveyor's blunder more than a century ago, the California-Oregon border runs right through the middle of this unincorporated backcountry burg, home to 250 residents equally distributed on both sides of the state line.

If you shop at the town's only general store, on the Oregon side, you don't pay sales tax, and vehicle registrations in the Beaver State are much cheaper. But over in the Golden State, you pay much less in property taxes... And here's the oddest part: Nobody in town can quite agree where the state border lies. That demarcation is currently drawn along State Line Road, but some insist the official boundary is actually a half-mile north."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: Townsfolk Reside in States of Confusion

Sunday, June 26, 2005 in The Los Angeles Times

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