Harper Plat

Harper was platted and the streets were even staked out.  But the town was never built out, probably  for the same reason the hotel business collapsed.  Harper was a stagecoach stop and the automobile put the stagecoach out of business in about 1917. In a 1971 monologue, the elder Claude Vandevert reports, "David Hill was a homesteader here when in 1906 and 1907 the railroad survey came through. He got the idea of a town which he named Harper. It was opposite the Sunriver entrance where the power station is now. It never grew much, but they did sell quite a few lots and had a hotel and a store."  

North is to the right on the map and the Oregon Trunk Railroad was to run along the south side of the town.  The railroad from Bend to Chemult wasn't built until 1929 and route of the tracks was changed to run roughly a mile east of where the town was supposed to be.  This plat map was obtained by Grace McNellis from a title company in Bend.