Sitkum is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Coos County,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, United States. It is about 27 miles north of Remote in the Southern Oregon Coast Range near the East Fork Coquille River. Sitkum is served by the Myrtle Point post office. A tavern or roadhouse was established as a

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

stop near a point halfway between Roseburg and Coos City on the

Coos Bay Wagon Road The Coos Bay Wagon Road or Coos Bay Military Wagon Road was a pioneer road in the U.S. state of Oregon that connected Douglas County, Oregon, Douglas County to Coos Bay, Oregon, Coos Bay starting in 1872. Travelers on the road could start in eith ...

about 1872 or 1873. A competitor put up another halfway house nearby and the name ''Sitkum'', a

Chinook Jargon Chinook Jargon (' or ', also known simply as ''Chinook'' or ''Jargon'') is a language originating as a pidgin language, pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to othe ...

word for "half", was selected for the place. Sitkum post office took its name from the tavern. It ran from 1873 to 1964, with one intermission. The Halfway House at Sitkum was a combination restaurant, tavern,

rooming house A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple Lease-by-room, rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-i ...

, post office and

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

station where travelers stopped while horses were changed. There is little left of the community today, and the Sitkum School was converted into a residence. The former teacher's house and the gym still exist on the grounds.

Climate

Sitkum has a Köppen climate type of CSB (warm-summer mediterranean), which is most of western

References

External links

Historic image
of

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

camp in Sitkum from the Oregon State University Archives Unincorporated communities in Coos County, Oregon Civilian Conservation Corps in Oregon 1873 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1873 Unincorporated communities in Oregon {{CoosCountyOR-geo-stub