Biohazard Cleanup Near Old Bend Bend, OR

Bend is a city in Central Oregon and the county seat of Deschutes County, sitting east of the Cascade Range on the Deschutes River.

Bend took its name from a fordable bend in the Deschutes River where pioneers crossed, and an 1870s ranch popularized the name Farewell Bend, which the post office later shortened to Bend.

Bend was platted on May 28, 1904, and incorporated on January 4, 1905, when its first official meeting appointed A. H. Goodwillie as its first mayor.

Bend began as a logging town, and the Pilot Butte Development Company's little plant, built in May 1901, was the town's first commercial sawmill.

In 1910, Mirror Pond was created by a dam on the Deschutes River that gave Bend its first electricity, and in 1916 Bend became the seat of the newly formed Deschutes County.

The 1950 closure of the Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Company caused the region's largest economic drop since the Great Depression, and Bend later grew rapidly as a center for recreation and retirement.

At the 2020 census, Bend had a population of 99,178, with 40,969 households and 25,421 families, making it the most populous city in Central Oregon and the sixth-most populous city in Oregon.

Bend's ZIP codes include 97701, 97702, 97703, and 97708.

Pilot Butte State Scenic Viewpoint, an extinct volcanic cinder cone, lies inside the city limits, making Bend one of only three cities in the continental United States with an extinct volcano within its limits.

The Deschutes River runs through Bend and is dammed to form Mirror Pond, while Drake Park sits on the river just south of downtown.