It was quite a town. They had a school, they had company store, they had a church. They had a pool hall.

Wendling was born out of logging camps and an early mill built in the 1880s. Named after Thomas P. Wendling, owner of the Wendling Mill. Wendling said he built the mill after a dream he had. He quickly began to dominate business in the area.

The town of Wendling grew based on Wendling’s money, Wendling’s plans, and Wendling’s goals. He wanted to create a better life for his employees: decent housing, good schools, and a "morally uplifting" society. In return, he expected stable, hard-working employees who would eschew the evils of drink and, most important, not fall prey to the blandishments of union organizers. Workers were paid in a mixture of cash and company scrip which could be used around town.

At the time the mill was one of the largest structures in the county and therefore site of much speculation. Men would swear they found themselves lost inside the mill after a shift which should have been impossible. In 1910, the town of Wendling burned down.

The main street of the town is but a blackened mass of ruins, not a single post of scantling remaining to mark the spot where the large cookhouse, 80 room hotel and bunkhouse, barber shop, meat market, pool and billiard hall once stood.

— Eugene’s Morning Register, August 26, 1910

The only structure that remained was the now ominously imposing structure of the mill. After the fire, men often claimed to hear strange voices in the mill especially at night, echoes of those who had died. Production continued, though at a lessening pace over the subsequent years as the mill and Wendling gained a reputation for being a place of bad luck and ill fortune. The town dwindled and shrank until the second fire in 1946.

After that, Wendling was abandoned as well as the Mill. The post office in town ceased to function and as the supply of workers dried up so did the work. In 1948, the Order of Restitution bought the land comprising the town of Wendling. Given its remote location and distance from neighboring towns, there wasn’t at first much local speculation. Indeed to this day there’s little written history on the period of time between this purchase and the start of the Restitution Agency in 1954.

Covered bridge at the entrance of Wendling, Oregon.

Similar to its origins, the reason for population in the town can be attributed solely to the presence of work. The Restitution Agency recruited top of field scientists, enticing them and their families to move into town. The promise of good pay, fascinating top of line work, and housing were more than enough to build out a bustling small town.

The Control and Management Building has been present since the inception of the Restitution Agency. Its construction and history is classified to 10a(c) clearance level only. Of primary note since growth of the Restitution Agency was the Easton Incident in 1983 which rendered a large neighborhood northwest of the Cam unlivable. What happened exactly is classified as well, but entrance into the neighborhood is barred except to certain high clearance researchers.