Junction City
This is Junction City, Oregon, a city in name only.
This spherical picture was my entry for the “Cities” theme of the World Wide Panorama in 2024.
Junction City is a very small town; its name can be seen if you look closely at the orange banners hanging along the street or the water tower peeking over the trees across the corner. Despite the name, it’s a small town with a lot of typical small town character.
This was taken mid-morning before some of the businesses were open; the day was just getting started. While many big cities would be starting to bustle at this time as people arrived for work, Junction City was still fairly quiet.
Although it was tempting to take a photo of a large city, like Portland, it seemed more interesting to find something that makes one reflect a little on what is meant by “city”. In this case, the town has that term in its name, although few people would consider a town of 7000 people to be a city. In choosing this spot, I explored various places that have the term “city” in their name but were really small towns. Sometimes there was history that showed the name was chosen aspirationally – people hoped the new settlement would grow into a city one day.
I chose Junction City largely for logistical reasons, and don’t know why they chose that name.