Robert Allison in 1891 freighted in goods and supplies from Loomis to open a small store and eating establishment. His location was named Oro, Spanish for gold.

The following spring, when James M. Hagerty published the first issue of "The Madre d’Oro" Allison still had the only completed building in town. Allison had departed, but his fine building served as a store, restaurant, boarding house, and stage station. The rest of the town of Oro, including the newspaper, was housed in the tents.

In 1893 a post office was crammed into the Allison building. The post office department added "ville" to "Oro" to avoid confusion with an existing post office, Oso, in Snohomish County. In time Oroville began replacing tents with frame buildings.

In 1906 a Great Northern Railway freight agent was dispatched to Okanogan County to size up potential revenues. This agent counted 17 saloons in Oroville, some of them hotel bars, far more than any other town in Okanogan County. The community flourished when the railroad arrived from Molson in 1907.