Bend

Travellers on the way west forded the Deschutes River at a double bend where the canyon gave out, a crossing that may have been known as Farewell Bend. In the 1870s John Young Todd bought a land claim here and named it Farewell Bend Ranch; because that name was taken, the Post Office shortened it to Bend. Before that the area had been crossed by army survey parties, including those of John C. Frémont and John Strong Newberry, whose name is carried by the volcano to the south.

The town grew with the timber of the surrounding forests. The Pilot Butte Development Company opened the first commercial sawmill in 1901, the town was platted in 1904 and incorporated by a vote of its 300 residents, and its council first met in January 1905. In 1910 a power company dam on the Deschutes created Mirror Pond, and in 1916 Bend became the seat of the new Deschutes County. Two giant mills, Shevlin-Hixon and Brooks-Scanlon, faced each other across the river and made Bend a company lumber town.

The timber ran out. The closure of Shevlin-Hixon in 1950 brought the worst slump since the Great Depression, and the remaining mills shut in later decades. Bend reinvented itself around tourism, outdoor sport and retirement: the ski area on Mount Bachelor opened in 1958, the old mill grounds became a shopping district, and the population grew from about 52,000 in 2000 to about 99,000 in 2020.

Outdoor life is the core of local identity. Within a short drive are mountain biking, fishing, hiking, climbing, rafting, paddling and skiing, and floating down the Deschutes through town on inner tubes is a summer ritual. Paragliding and golf are popular too.

Beer is the other pillar. Deschutes Brewery, founded in Bend, grew into one of the largest craft breweries in the United States, and by 2024 the city had more than thirty breweries and four cider makers, linked by the Bend Ale Trail. Beer festivals fill the calendar, including the Bend Brewfest, the Bend Oktoberfest, the Little Woody barrel-aged beer and whiskey festival and Central Oregon Beer Week. One brewery even runs an observatory with a large telescope.

The arts have grown with the population, with galleries, the restored Tower Theatre downtown, an outdoor amphitheatre in the Old Mill District for summer concerts, and the independent BendFilm festival, founded in 2004. The city is also known for a curiosity: since 2019 its franchised Blockbuster has been the last remaining shop of the video-rental chain anywhere in the world, and visitors come to photograph it.

Bend had 99,178 people at the 2020 census, and its metropolitan area, which now covers Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties, had an estimated 260,919 in 2023. It is the seat of Deschutes County, with the Deschutes National Forest along its south-western edge.

Tourism is one of the largest sectors of the economy — in 2011 it employed 16 per cent of the city's workforce — and the hotel tax helps pay for streets, fire and police. Health care, construction, remote workers and retirees fill out the economy, and many people moved here for the lifestyle. That growth has made housing expensive: the median home listing price was over $750,000 in 2025, and homelessness has grown in the region.

The rhythm of the day follows the outdoors: early starts for the ski lifts or trails, after-work rides and paddles in summer, and evenings in brewpubs. Weekends bring crowds to the river, and traffic builds on the roads into town during holidays.

Bend's food culture grew up around its breweries. Brewpubs are where many people eat out — burgers, fish and chips, salads and pub plates alongside pale ales, IPAs and darker winter beers — and Deschutes Brewery, founded as a small downtown brewpub in 1988, is known for its Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Black Butte Porter. Its success reached beyond the city: in 2008 the brewery opened a second pub in Portland's Pearl District. By 2024 four hard cider makers had joined the breweries.

Downtown's Wall and Bond streets hold dozens of restaurants, cafés and bakeries, and the Old Mill District has riverside dining with terraces over the Deschutes.

Much of the produce comes from elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, whose cooking draws on salmon and other seafood, wild mushrooms, berries and small fruits. Oregon also grows 95 per cent of the hazelnuts produced in the United States, and they turn up on menus across the state.