Gilchrist was the last lumber company town in Oregon. The town was founded in 1938 by the family-owned Gilchrist Timber Company, which moved there from Mississippi in search of lumber and lower taxes.
The company was sold to Crown-Pacific in 1991, which subsequently fired all its employees. The town of 120 homes and other facilities were subsequently sold to residents and others around 1998, with Crown-Pacific retaining the sawmill and timberland.
The town's mill, upgraded to handle smaller logs in 2000, is one of the remaining assets of Crown-Pacific, which declared bankruptcy in 2003.