My small town is becoming.....
 

so cosmopolitan. We are getting ready to have 3 traffic lights!....lol

It's about time it is so dangerous at this intersection.

http://www.ktvz.com/news/new-hwy-97-...ed-on/36074848

my small town was a hamlet, now it has a 4 story business building and a movies was made about our town.
yes, sadly, things change.

The small town I grew up in is still small. Businesses include post office, grain elevator, fertilizer plant and a couple home businesses just on the edge of the town. Went past my parents former house and it looked as I expected. I didn't expect it to look as well kept as my parents kept it. As inexpensive as the payments were you would think they wouldn't let it go into foreclosure. But gal never paid the property taxes. OOps. There I go rambling again. Still no stop signs or traffic lights. couple street lights. You can see the North, East and South sides of the town when you go down the highway.

You are living large by comparison! In our 'downtown' district (which is about 2 blocks long in each direction) we still only have 1 traffic light! Go out a bit and there are more but our town is only 1 square mile.

Welcome to the big time! I think we stayed in La Pine in 2004. We had taken a trip to the West Coast to visit my sister-in-law in California and then went up to Oregon. We happened to hit it just right to go to Sisters for the quilt show. We also went to Bend and even considered moving there after retirement. Nice area!

Leslie

I grew up in a township-summer time there would be close to 300 people. Once school time rolled around the numbers dropped to about 80-pets out numbered people. Lake Erie was our front yard. They now boast a population of 650. Still has no stop lights -no post office and they still have 1 neighborhood bar - 2 bait shops and the same Superette owned by the same family. Only 30 minutes to K-Mart providing you don't get caught by a train.Where I live now it's still a small town at about 16,000 -in 1995 there were less than 1300.I've lived all over in big cities-Indy -Atlanta -Philly -San Diego to name a few and I really prefer small town living. People are friendlier and watch out for one another.

I had 27 addresses, because of my Marine Dad's frequent moves, before my DH and I settled in the Catskills, where we've lived in the same house for over 40 years. We have two traffic lights and two blinking ones; the PO (built in the '30s by the WPA), the Library (given as a gift in 1905 by a native son made good), and the Theater/Town Hall (where we have live concerts by groups like by Jay and Molly Unger; where Tom Mix and Teddy Roosevelt once gave speeches) are on the National Historic Register. I've loved watching generations of my friends grow old, have grandchildren. It's like a huge, long-running saga unfold in front of my eyes. The population is about the same as it was when we got here - or what it was in the 1860 census.

I live in the country between 2 small towns (about 2200 population each) and the stop & go lights have been removed within the last couple of years - were told they weren't necessary. Not so sure of that though.

I have one traffic light,2 bars 2 churches 1 deli,1 gas station and 1 second hand store. Alas no quilt store but 3 within 20 minutes! Diane C.

We have NO traffic lights, and neither did our former town. We do live within ten miles of a "city" with many services and quilt shops!

My DH was in the Air Force. Every where we went was a large town. We had 2 overseas tours. Japan and England, They had commissary were we could by food.

There was one flashing signal light where my Dad lived in a small town in AZ. It was my clue to make a left turn.

Our small city has removed a majority of traffic lights and replaced them with stop signs. Less maintenance. We also have less traffic as we have lost many jobs. I would take growth over our downturn.

Our town has a population of around 5,000 that does not include the outlying areas nearby. We live about a mile from a state park in a neighborhood full of dirt roads. It's nice and peaceful here, especially when the front gates are closed.

I would rather live in a small town -- unfortunately we have 70,000 in our town. At least I live 12 miles out so only deal with it a couple times a week!

Hi Lynnie - what movie was about your town? I'm lucky Lake Grove is still a village. In fact, I live in the village proper. I love saying that I live in a village. People can't believe it, LOL.

Ah, the pleasures of a country town. Ours is in a big uproar over putting bags on the horses. The town has a huge horse cookie sweeper that they bring out every morning to clean up the streets and buggy parking lots. But it doesn't get the main roads. It was determined that there would be too many accidents with bags on the horses.

Bags are fine for a horse going slow, but they trot them fast around here and the bags flop around. The retired cop has a horse and so he tried one for his rig. It was fine standing there and walking slow, but as soon as he got going faster the horse went bananas. It isn't going to work for us. So if you come to visit Amish country expect some horse cookies on your tires.

If only we could keep forever some parts of our community, culture, but unfortunately progress can change too much in our life.

Wow! La Pine is hitting the big time and you are right - that is a very dangerous stretch of highway. I worked at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend for several years and remember all of the bad accidents coming in from that area! Glad to see they are finally slowing traffic down.

OMG!!!! La Pine is hitting the BIG TIME!!!! I might have to take a drive, just to see the new lights.

We don't have a downtown, we lost our only gas station about five years ago. We have two stop signs. My mother says there used to be a cannery, an ice cream factory and a hotel. I vaguely remember a small variety store and a bank -- both closed when I was quite young. However, we have at least six churches.

I see you have a Best Western too...Very cosmopolitan :-)

I bought my home in a very small town, intentionally. That was in 2006, the economy tanked two years later, and I guess you know what that did to property values. Our small town decided to build a medical college less than a mile from my home ( only the second in Oregon), which prevented our property values from dropping very far. Nice, but now the town is growing by leaps and bounds. So much for living in a small town.....I still love it here.

Yes we are! La Pine has three motels and lots of RV places to camp at.

We bought our house in 2009 for a good price, $155,000. It's 1639 sq.ft. with a two car garage, a 28 x 30 shop. And two sheds, 2 carports and two dog kennels. Although we are planning on dividing the big kennel into two smaller ones come spring time. Our Realtor neighbor says our house is worth close to 230k in this market. But, we have no plans to leave.

I found out recently, our little town I grew up in was actually 2 for awhile. The railroad tracks divided it. One side was Yoder, Indiana and the other side was Sheldon. Had 6 bars back then (early 1800-1900). Then prohibition and the WCTA, WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION burned a couple down and the others shut down and were turned into private homes. That is what I was told. It is now for some time Yoder, Indiana. The livery stable became a blacksmith shop. The currier was a short little man with arms as wide and solid as he was tall. He made a stubborn mule get up off its rear so he could change the shoes. He never allowed anyone in his shop for obvious reasons. An Amish man insisted on standing near his rowdy horse and got kicked clean out the door. Only his ego got bruised but he never went back into the building.

It' still very bad on 97 between La Pine and Bend. Just yesterday some guy cut us off because he couldn't wait till we passed. There wasn't anyone behind us, he just didn't care. There weather is starting to change here, snow tires are allowed starting Sunday. They give people a false sense of security and drive like its still summer on icy and snowy roads.
We learned rather quickly to slow down in such weather. Our first winter here a guy passed us and a semi, where the highway merged into one lane. The semi was starting to jackknife but straightened out, we ended up in the snow bank. As for the driver of the truck who was in such a hurry......he had the nerve to ask us to help him get out. We ended up with a $500.00 repair bill on tour truck.