24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near Ochoco Pointe Prineville, OR

Prineville is a city in and the county seat of Crook County, Oregon, named for Barney Prine, the first merchant to establish businesses in the present location.

The 2020 census counted 10,736 residents in Prineville, with 4,306 households.

The post office for the community was established with the name of Prine on April 13, 1871, but changed to Prineville on December 23, 1872, and the city was founded in 1877 when Monroe Hodges filed the original plat and incorporated by the Oregon Legislative Assembly on October 23, 1880.

Prineville was snubbed in 1911 when railroad tycoons James J. Hill and Edward H. Harriman bypassed the city, so in a 1917 election residents voted 355 to 1 to build their own railway and raised the money to connect the town to the main line 19 miles away.

Helped by timber harvests from the nearby Ochoco National Forest, the City of Prineville Railroad prospered for decades, and its profits were so abundant that between 1964 and 1968 the city levied no property taxes.

Since the late 2000s, Apple and Facebook have each invested over one billion dollars in multiple data centers located within Prineville city limits, with Facebook selecting Prineville in 2010 and Apple announcing a Green Data Center on a 160-acre tract on February 21, 2012.

Les Schwab Tire Centers has been associated with Prineville since the company's founding in 1952, though it announced on December 12, 2006, that it would move its corporate headquarters to nearby Bend.

Prineville is located on the Crooked River at the mouth of Ochoco Creek, 14 miles northwest of the Prineville Reservoir, and Barnes Butte, a prominent butte formed by ancient basaltic flows, lies partially within the city.

Prineville recorded a high temperature of 119 degrees Fahrenheit on July 29, 1898, tying it for the highest temperature ever recorded in Oregon.

Prineville's nicknames are The Key City of the High Desert and Rockhound Capital of the U.S., and its mottoes are The Heart of Oregon and Oregon's High Desert.