Millersburg: Incorporated by a Vote of Seventy-Six to Seventy-Four
Near Salem, Oregon
Millersburg came into being in nineteen seventy-four for one very specific reason: to keep Albany from swallowing it. The Wah Chang Corporation operated a zirconium processing plant here for the United States Bureau of Mines, and when neighboring Albany began eyeing annexation, local landowners and residents decided to incorporate first. The cityhood vote passed seventy-six to seventy-four.
Despite a population of only around five hundred and fifty at the time, Millersburg started out with a substantial industrial tax base, because the Wah Chang plant counted for a great deal. It is a rare case of a town born not from a railroad or a land rush or a religious vision, but from a close election and a desire to stay out of someone else's city limits.
