By JAYSON JACOBY

Of the Baker City Herald

Durkee was a community when the Civil War still raged, but never in its 137-year history has it been a town.

At least not officially.

This little settlement of about 150 people, situated near the mouth of Burnt River Canyon 20 miles southeast of Baker City, has long been something of a mongrel among Baker County’s other towns, lacking their pedigrees of mayor and council and city charter.

When Durkee residents meet for coffee they do not debate the urban growth boundary.

They do not have an urban growth boundary.

What Durkee does have is a tradition of community and community as that word is defined by neighbors, not by urban planners.

andquot;Everybody’s a neighbor, everybody sticks together, everybody helps out,andquot; said Anita York, Durkee’s postmaster for the past eight years.

andquot;There is definitely a sense of community.andquot;

And if one event can be said to epitomize that sense of community, surely it would be the annual Durkee Steak Feed.

andquot;The steak feed is the big event here all right,andquot; said Elwood Wirth, 60, who was raised in nearby Lime and has lived in Durkee Valley since 1974.

This year’s version of the tradition, which dates back more than half a century, will take place Saturday at the 90-year-old Durkee School.

The property tax-funded Durkee Community Building Preservation District acquired the building recently, along with the old Catholic Church, Wirth said.

The old school hasn’t housed students for many years, but it’s still the site for most community events, including Durkee Grange meetings, weddings and funerals, and the annual Durkee Thanksgiving dinner.

andquot;That hall is used an awful lot,andquot; said Inez Cartwright, 73, a Durkee area native who lives in Weatherby

Cartwright, who joined the Durkee Grange when she was 14, scarcely had time to talk about the Steak Feed because she was busy preparing for it, wrapping silverware for the expected crowd of 600.

Although Cartwright has lived at Weatherby for 57 years, she still names Durkee when someone asks where she’s from.

Cartwright’s loyalty to this place is typical for Durkee.

Many of the Grange’s 45 members live elsewhere now, some hundreds of miles away.

But they still pay their dues, preserving those important Durkee ties.

And strong ties they are, even if neither the state nor the federal government recognizes Durkee as anything other than a dot on a map and a freeway exit.

andquot;I feel like we’re kind of one big family out here,andquot; said Vivian Zikmund, 53, who moved to Durkee in 1979 and still considers herself a andquot;newcomer.andquot;

andquot;We don’t think of ourselves as anything but a small town, whether we’re incorporated or not.andquot;

Zikmund, who along with her husband, Bill, works at the Ash Grove Cement plant on the east end of Durkee Valley, said visitors, as well as some of her commuting co-workers, shudder at even the prospect of living in Durkee.

Zikmund understands.

andquot;I cried when I had to move to Durkee,andquot; she said. andquot;But now you couldn’t drag me away. I plan to be buried in the Durkee cemetery.andquot;

There seems not to be any definite answer as to why Durkee never incorporated.

Its population is similar to Baker County towns such as Richland, Sumpter and Unity; and like the former and the latter, Durkee always has been a gathering place for ranching families.

andquot;There used to be more people,andquot; Cartwright said. andquot;Once there were saloons and barber shops and general stores.andquot;

You could argue that Durkee’s location actually made it a more likely candidate for incorporation than, say, Richland or Unity.

Durkee never has been particularly remote by Baker County standards, at least since settlers started arriving in the region in the 1860s.

Thousands of emigrant wagons rolled along the dusty Oregon Trail nearby, and today both the Union Pacific Railroad and Interstate 84 cleave Durkee Valley.

Yet there isn’t a single business in downtown Durkee, Wirth points out. There is only the post office, which inevitably bustles because there is no home mail delivery and all mail goes to post office boxes.

Durkee’s commercial district a service station and store is on the north side of the freeway. There used to a cafe there, too, but it closed this spring.

The public gathering places in Durkee number just three, Zikmund said the post office, the freeway station and the old school.

andquot;I think we all really like it this way,andquot; she said.

Maybe someday someone will decide Durkee should make it official, and take the plunge into incorporation.

But with 137 years of Burnt River water under the bridge, maybe the status quo is sufficient.

Either way, the residents of Durkee will continue to relish their rural anonymity in an urban world.

andquot;When you say you’re from Durkee a lot of people don’t even know where it is,andquot; Cartwright said.

andquot;It’s still a nice place.andquot;