Central Oregon's largest city has a lot to offer - from a sunny climate, to outdoor recreation, to cultural amenities. It's a fun, healthy place to live, as the thousands of people flocking here every year will attest.

Maybe it's something in the mountain air, but Bend has always attracted men and women of ambition and adventure, from Scandanavian mill workers who ski jumped off Pilot Butte to the current wave of have-laptop-will-travel urban transplants.

Geographically, Bend is bisected by the Deschutes River and marks on the transition between the ponderosa covered east slope of the Cascades and the juniper-and-sage High Desert.

Bend has a thriving downtown district, well-loved Drake Park, and many long-time residents, businesses and institutions. The timber industry, apart from a few small operations, has been replaced by a more diversified job base that includes tourism, retail trade, services, health care, niche manufacturers and technology.

Bend is a city of newcomers, where tenure of more than a decade may label you an "old timer." Those people, often retirees and refugees from the West Coast cities, have brought new ideas, new energy and new prosperity to their new home.

More population growth and several huge projects have further changed Bend's face. The Bend Parkway now provides a speedy north-south route through town. The Old Mill District, an utterly original mixed-use development on the former Brooks-Scanlon plant site, is taking shape. And, after years of effor, a branch campus of Oregon State University is bringing better access to higher education and economic and cultural opportunities.

Bend's challenge - like that of much of Oregon - will be to accomodate its new residents while preserving and enhancing the special things that brought people here in the first place.

Visitor Information

Central Oregon Visitors Association
572 SW Bluff Drive, Suite C, Bend
1-800-800-8334
www.covisitors.com

Bend Chamber of Commerce
777 NW Wall St, Suite 200, Bend
1-800-905-2363
www.bendchamber.org

Bend Visitor and Convention Bureau
63085 N Highway 97
1-800-949-6086
www.visitbend.org

 

City of Bend

P.O. Box 431
Bend, OR  97709

(541) 388-5505

www.ci.bend.or.us