Bridal Veil, Oregon

Bridal Veil was a company town, built in eighteen eighty-six by a lumber concern that needed workers close to its sawmill at the base of the Columbia River Gorge cliffs. The mill cut timber hauled down from the plateau above, and for decades the town existed entirely to support that operation. Company housing, a company store, a company school: the full template.

The mill shut down in the nineteen sixties and the town's population dwindled to almost nothing. What Bridal Veil retained was its post office, which became famous among romantics as a mailing address: couples nationwide began sending their wedding invitations through Bridal Veil specifically for the postmark. The post office still handles this sentimental traffic today, one of the last working remnants of the old town.

The falls of the same name, a short hike above the highway, remain one of the Gorge's most visited.