Bridal Veil, Oregon
| Bridal Veil | |
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| Unincorporated community | |
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Train load of larch as seen from cab. Bridal Veil Lumber Company, Oregon, 1910.
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 Bridal Veil
Bridal Veil
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| Coordinates: 45°33′33″N 122°10′27″W / 45.55917°N 122.17417°WCoordinates: 45°33′33″N 122°10′27″W / 45.55917°N 122.17417°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Oregon |
| County | Multnomah |
| Time zone | Pacific (PST) (UTC-8) |
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
| ZIP codes | 97010 |
| Area code(s) | 503/971 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1138601 |
Bridal Veil is a virtual ghost town located in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. It was established in the 1880s during a logging boom by a logging company as it harvested timber on nearby Larch Mountain to be a company mill town around a sawmill. It had a close relationship with the logging town of Palmer for the first 50 years of its history. As of November 2011, all that remains of the town is a post office and a cemetery. The site is located near the west end of the Columbia River Gorge.
Bridal Veil was established in 1886. Bridal Veil functioned as the Bridal Veil Falls Lumbering Company and built a sawmill one mile (1.6 km) up Larch Mountain. The company operated in Bridal Veil and the surrounding area from 1886-1936. A mile and half up the timber-rich mountain was the logging town of Palmer. Palmer and Bridal Veil shared common ownership as company mill towns. Together, the two towns produced lumber and were codependent. A V-shaped log flume was built for the rough cut timber to get down the mountain to the planing mill at the railroad tracks in Bridal Veil. After the timber was logged on the mountain, they were brought to the sawmill in Palmer. As the rough-cut lumber exited Palmer's mill it traveled down the flume the mile and a half to the finishing mill in Bridal Veil. The dependency between the two towns ended in 1936 when the mill at Palmer was shut down.
In 1936, fire struck the mill as the timber resources on Larch Mountain were running out. The Bridal Veil Falls Lumbering Company ended its ownership of the mill with the fire and ceased to operate in the town. In 1937, the entire town and its mills were bought by a company that became Bridal Veil Lumber and Box Company, which made wooden cheese boxes for Kraft Food Company. The company continued to operate in Bridal Veil until 1960 when it closed its doors. Today the boxes made in Bridal Veil are considered collectible antiques.
From 1955 to 1960, the company's president, Leonard Kraft, published a newsletter that covered such issues as business and prospects but also provided society information about potluck dinners, who was sick in town, who was visiting Bridal Veil and who had marked a recent anniversary with the company. Bridal Veil Lumber & Box Co. News Letter was the "newspaper" of the Lumber and Box Company but it also became the newspaper for Bridal Veil and its 100 residents. The mill continued to operate under various owners through 1988.
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