POWELL BUTTE Rancher Tom Alexander remembers when you could drive a herd of cattle down the road from one pasture in Powell Butte to another and it wasn’t a problem.

”There wasn’t a lot of traffic and those who were driving past were your neighbors so they didn’t mind waiting,” said Alexander, who has lived in the area for 40 years.

But for Powell Butte folks, those days are long gone.

The small community, located between Redmond and Prineville, has grown significantly in the past several years. The population has doubled since 1980, from 1,059 to 2,040 people, according to U.S. Census data.

Although the population has grown by only about 1,000 people, that growth has increased the demand for services, from a new fire station and school to one businessman’s plans for a new store and post office.

”When I first came here this was a genuine, bona fide farming community,” said Alexander, who owns a couple hundred acres just north of the Grange Hall. People were either involved with potatoes, livestock, hay or a combination of the three.

And the place felt small.

”You couldn’t go to a community function without knowing the majority of the people there,” he said. ”There was a definite community spirit if you had trouble with a cow and needed to call a neighbor for help, you just did it and vice versa.”

For the most part, people moving in have been pretty friendly, he said, but few are career ranchers or farmers. And as more people move in and push up the price of real estate, it’s a lot harder for younger farm families to come back and buy land, Alexander said.

In fact, realtor Bill Jordan said a house on a small amount of acreage in the Red Cloud development near Powell Butte can cost from $250,000 to more than $500,000. ”There’s not a lot of low-end housing out there,” he said.

The area seems to attract upper-income people, like business executives, or retirees who are looking for a rural lifestyle, Jordan said. In fact, the area has seen its 45-year-and-older population spike by 114 percent from 455 to 971 in the past 10 years, compared with a 30 percent increase in people 44 years old and younger from 822 to 1,069, according to Census data.

”The main issue is livability,” Jordan said. ”The quality of life out there is just good.”

Powell Butte resident Duane Balcom said the type of people coming in seems to benefit the community.

Balcom owns West Powell Butte Estates, a new development off Highway 26 that could potentially have 58 houses, each on 20 acres of land. There are four houses there right now.

”(The new residents) are paying a lot of taxes, yet most of them don’t have children and they are not using many of the services,” he said. ”They are bringing in money from the outside.”

Many are weekend farmers and contribute to the farming community as well by buying saddles, alfalfa and grain, Balcom said.

According to Crook County Judge Scott Cooper, recent data from Oregon State University reveal that a large portion of the county’s economy is dependent on money specifically from retirees for example from things like new construction.

”We welcome the growth in terms of its benefits on our local economy,” Cooper said.

But while the growth may improve Crook County’s financial situation, some believe that it has also created a need for more services in the rural community.

For now, Powell Butte residents have an elementary school, a country store, a church and a post office. Jan Boles, principal at Powell Butte Elementary, said the school board is beginning to make plans to remodel the current school, which is more than 70 years old, or build a new one altogether.

The school’s enrollment has actually dropped a little over the last two years, but is now holding steady at about 150 students. However, those 150 are crowded into the original building, plus four modular classrooms outside the school.

Emergency service to the area has also become a concern.

Jim Dean, division chief with the Crook County Rural Fire Protection District, said the distance from the main station in Prineville to Powell Butte is just too far. The fire department owns land across from the Powell Butte Country Store, and Dean said the department is trying to find some money to build a new station.

Even the post office and local church are feeling growing pains.

Postmaster Judy Fettig said that business at the post office has picked up.

Five years ago, the little post office on the corner of Powell Butte Highway and Highway 126 had only one route, but Fettig said they now have one route plus an auxiliary route.

Mail carrier Rachel McIntosh said that when she started 20 years ago, she delivered mail to 139 families. Now McIntosh and another carrier deliver mail to more than 600 families.

Jordan, the realtor, also owns the post office building and the corner it sits on, and he has plans for a new building that would house the post office, a convenience store and some office space.

The Crook County Planning Commission denied Jordan’s first application for reasons including issues of traffic safety, the community’s need for such a project and concerns about the size of the development. The commission is scheduled to hear Jordan’s appeal Jan. 2.

John A. Robinson, pastor at Powell Butte Christian Church, said that about 200 people have joined the church in the past five years, bringing the congregation to about 400. While many of the members come from Redmond and Prineville, Robinson said more people moving to Powell Butte also have contributed to the church’s growth.

Alexander, a local rancher, said the growth hasn’t gone unopposed or come without drawbacks like increased traffic. But the rancher said not much could be done to stop it. ”The way I see it you have three choices,” he said. ”You can stay and like it, stay and dislike it, or move,” he said.

And the folks moving in have been good neighbors, he added.

”There might be a lot more people that you don’t know,” he said. ”But overall, the quality of people hasn’t diminished and it’s still a good place to live.”

Kelly Kearsley can be reached at 541-617-7814 or by sending an e-mail to Kelly Kearsley.