Placer is an unincorporated community in Josephine County, Oregon, United States, on Grave Creek a few miles east of Interstate 5.

[1] Established during the local gold mining boom, it is considered a ghost town.

[2] Placer was unofficially established in 1885 as "Tom East" and platted in 1898 by pioneer landowner L. M. Browning, who had arrived in the area in 1870.

[3] Tom East was an early southwest Oregon miner, who came to the U.S. from England as a young man.

[1] In the 1870s, he prospected and mined along the Rogue River, eventually settling on Brushy Bar near the future site of the community of Marial, where he lived until his death in 1897.