Talent

History

A. P. Tallent, an East Tennessee native who settled in Oregon in the 1870s, platted the city in the 1880s. He wanted to name it Wagner but was overruled by postal officials, who preferred Talent, dropping one of the L's. The post office opened at this location in 1883. Earlier names for the settlement were Eden District and Wagner Creek. On September 8, 2020, roughly a third of Talent, along with neighboring Phoenix and parts of Medford and Ashland, were destroyed by the Almeda Drive Fire. On September 11, 2020, authorities said they were preparing for a mass fatality incident. As of September 11, 600 homes and 100 commercial buildings have been destroyed by the Almeda Drive Fire, but on September 18, that number was updated to 2,800. Officials stated that the Almeda Drive Fire was human-caused. A separate criminal investigation into the origin point of the Almeda Drive Fire in Ashland is ongoing.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land. The city is south of Medford, about halfway between Phoenix, to the north, and Ashland, to the south, along Interstate 5 and Oregon Route 99. This is toward the southern end of the Rogue River Valley, near the Siskiyou Mountains and the border with California. Wagner Creek, a tributary of Bear Creek, joins the larger stream at Talent. This region experiences warm to hot and dry summers, with average temperatures above . According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Talent has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps.

Race & ethnicity