Auburn Oregon

Baker County Oregon Officers

County Officers At the session of the legislature which convened in September 1862, an act was passed organizing the county of Baker, including within its limits all the southeast portion of the state, which has since been divided into the several counties of Wallowa, Union, Baker and Malheur. Officers for the new county were appointed upon their duties on the third day of November 1862, as appears from the journal of the county court, in which the first entry is as follows: County Court of Baker County, Oregon, met pursuant to law, Nov. 3, 1862. Present, the Hon. John Q. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Samuel D. Cowles

COWLES & MCDANIEL. – Samuel D. Cowles, senior member of the firm above-mentioned, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1829, his father being a wealthy broker. He received a ten years’ naval training and finished his education in New York City, where in after years he was in business for himself. In 1849 he crossed the plains to California. In 1862 we find him crossing the plains once more, coming from Missouri in company with a nephew and niece. At Soda Springs a band of Indians, under the leadership of one of his own employe’s, attacked is party and after … Read more

Biography of H. Y. Thompson

H. Y. Thompson was born at Senecaville, Guernsey county, Ohio, June 4, 1845. He was favored with a liberal education in the public and high schools of his native town. With the hope of improving his health, which had become impaired, in 1862, he undertook a trip across the plains and during the winter of 1862-3 was engaged in mining in Auburn, Baker County, Oregon. In the spring of 1863 he went to Idaho City and for three years carried on his mining operations at that place. His health not improving, he determined to try the climate of the valley … Read more

Arrivals, Incidents and Anecdotes of Baker County Oregon

Joseph Kinnison came to Powder River valley in July and took up a ranch where he has ever since resided. To him belongs the honor of plowing the first furrow ever turned in Baker County. In the spring of 1863 he had about forty acres in cultivation. About the first of June there was a severe frost and all growing vegetables seemed to be thoroughly frozen. Mr. Kinnison offered to take fifty dollars for his crop but found no buyer. He was most agreeably surprised to find, when the frost was gone, that no serious damage had been done, and … Read more

Garlock, Frank Mrs. – Obituary

Woman Murdered; Youth Is Suspected  Mrs. Frank Garlock of the Auburn section, about 50, was shot and killed Wednesday evening as she sat at the supper table in her home. Frank Garlock had been in Baker during the day and found her body in the chair when he returned home at dusk. Clarence Woolery, a 14-year-old boy who had lived on the Garlock farm for about five years, is missing as is the farmer’s .44 calibre rifle. The woman was shot with a .44 calibre bullet and was probably killed instantly. The boy is reported to have quarreled frequently with … Read more

Auburn Oregon Catholic Church

As stated elsewhere, the first church established in Baker was the Catholic Church, organized at Auburn in 1862 by Father Mesplie. On that first visit he solemnized the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Packwood, the second event of the kind in the county, that of Mr. and Mrs. Hall a short time before being the first. Father Deilman came over from Canyon City to Auburn at intervals afterward and held services but there was never any resident priest at the town. Father Deilman got lost on one of his trips, and wandered in the mountains three days with nothing to … Read more

Biography of John H. O’Bryant

JOHN H. O’BRYANT. – We esteem it a privilege to be permitted to chronicle for the history of our county a brief review of the substantial and prominent citizen, whose name is at the head of this article, and who has wrought in the pioneer’s life so well and faithfully for the opening of this and adjacent counties and for their development and advancement for over one-third of a century, while his life of constant adherence to right and the principles of truth and uprightness, together with manifestation of sagacity and sound judgment, has placed him in a most enviable … Read more

Biography of Edward V. More

Edward V. More. Of the families of Champaign County whose industry and activities of life have contributed materially to the prosperity and upbuilding of the community one of the most highly respected is that which bears the name of More, and which has a worthy representative in Edward V. More of Rantoul. Mr. More, who is engaged in the fire insurance business at this time and whose energies have taken him into other fields of endeavor during a long and uniformly successful career, was born in St. Joseph County, Michigan, and is a son of James R. and Louisa M. … Read more

Public Schools of Baker County Oregon

It is much to be regretted that all records of matters pertaining to public schools during the first years of the settlement of the county, have been lost. All that can be done now is to record such matters as may be remembered by those who were engaged in school affairs in those days, as teachers or otherwise. As stated elsewhere, Mrs. Packwood taught the first school in the county, at Auburn, in the fall of 1862. Soon after her arrival she engaged in the work of raising money for the purpose of building a schoolhouse, and in a short … Read more

Biography of Heman J. Geer

HEMAN J. GEER. – The name of Geer is so well known in our state that the following account of the father of T.T. Geer of the Waldo hills will be of interest to all. This now venerable pioneer was born in Ohio in 1828, removing with his parents to Illinois in 1840. In 1847 he crossed the plains to Oregon with General Palmer’s train. The large company forestalled trouble with the Indians. Peter Hall, who stopped with Whitman at Walla Walla was the only one who experienced any disaster. The crossing of the Cascade Mountains by the Barlow Road … Read more

Arrival of Early Pioneers to Baker County Oregon

Early in June 1862, traveling parties from California and Nevada began to arrive at the mines on Powder River. These parties had started for the Salmon River mines, and were surprised when they found a mining camp in Eastern Oregon. Amongst those who came across the country from those states were Hardin Estes, Fred Dill, John P. Bowen and perhaps others who have remained here ever since. Estes and Dill came from Nevada with a party of about twenty, known as the White Horse company, having received that name on account of so many of their horses being white. They … Read more

Slater, Olive – Obituary

Final Rites to Be Tomorrow for Olive Slater, Early-Day Teacher Olive Agnes Slater, for whom funeral services will be held at 2 o’clock Sunday at the Snodgrass Funeral home, daughter of the late James H. and Edna Elizabeth Slater was born at Corvallis March 29, 1860. She with her parents went to Auburn, Ore., in 1864, coming to La Grande two years later. Miss Slater attended the public schools of Union county and later graduated from St. Paul’s Episcopal school in Walla Walla, Wash., majoring in art and music. She taught for a number of years in public schools then … Read more

History of Baker City Oregon Government

Pursuant to an act of the legislature in 1874 the people of Baker City proceeded to form a city government, by electing the officers required by the terms of the charter. The trustees were S. B. McCord, J. A. Reid, S. Grier, J. H. Parker and G. J. Bowman. The first meeting of the board was held at the Court House, November 25, 1874, at which Bowman was elected president. The minutes of the meeting were signed by R. H. Cardwell, recorder. At a meeting of the board November 28, Wm. M. Constable was elected city marshal. On December 2, … Read more

Biography of Edward S. Jewell

Edward S. Jewell dates his residence in the Salubria valley from 1869, and is therefore numbered among its pioneer farmers and stock-raisers. A native of Wisconsin, he was born in Dodgeville, Iowa County, that state, on the 9th of October 1846, and is of English extraction. His father, Edward S. Jewell, Sr., was born in Cornwall, England, and after his marriage came with his wife and five children to the United States, locating in Wisconsin, where he remained until 1852, when he went to California to secure gold in the Eldorado of the west. It is believed that he was … Read more

Events in Baker County, Oregon History

Most of the miners about Auburn, and throughout the country also, during the first years of the development of the mining business, were Californians, and that there was a difference betwixt them and Oregonians at that time, was apparent to any one who met a considerable number of persons from each of the two states. It seems remarkable that such a difference should exist between the people of two adjoining states which had been settled by immigrants from the same sections of the country east of the Missouri river, and that settlement, too, of so recent date that the youths … Read more

Auburn Cemetery, Auburn, Oregon

Auburn is a former mining town and was the seat of Baker County from 1862 to 1868. It is reached by taking State Highway No. 7 out of Baker for seven miles to its junction with a dirt road south of Baker. Turn right on this road along Blue Canyon Creek about three miles. Auburn is to the right and the cemetery is one mile beyond on a hill overlooking the town. High ground was chosen for the cemetery so it would not be mined out later, the canyon bed being of very rich ground. This is one of the … Read more

Biography of John Strode

With two of the most important industries that have contributed to the development and prosperity of the northwest, mining and stock rasing, John Strode has long been identified. He became a resident of California in 1852, ten years later went to Oregon, and since 1863 has made his home in Idaho. His birth occurred in Tennessee, on the 6th of February 1833, and he is of English, German and Welsh descent but the original ancestors, who came from England Wales and Germany, found homes in America at an early period in her history and were pioneer settlers of Kentucky. John … Read more

Incidents in Pioneer Days in Baker County, Oregon

People who come to the Pacific States in palace cars, making the trip in four or five days, can have but a faint conception of the toils and hardships endured by those who crossed the plains with teams before the advent of railroads. Experience would also be necessary, perhaps, to enable one to fully appreciate the humorous phases of the journey; but doubtless scores of old pioneers have smiled at sight of a certain paper which was posted on a tree by the side of the trail between Elk creek and Auburn in the fall of ’62, for it could … Read more

Kirkwood, Luellen A. Withers Mrs. – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Luellen A. Kirkwood, 94, a longtime Baker City resident died Dec. 15, 2001, at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center. Her graveside service will be at 10 a.m. Saturday in Mount Hope Cemetery. Maj. Dennis Trimmer of The Salvation Army will officiate. There will be a memorial service at 10:30 a.m. at The Salvation Army, 1820 Estes St. Mrs. Kirkwood was born Luellen A. Withers on July 26, 1907, at Ault, Colo., to Herman and Caty Withers. She was the oldest of four sisters and one brother. She attended school at Baker and Auburn. In February of 1928, … Read more

Makin, William – Obituary

To the capable and enterprising citizen whose name initiates this paragraph we are pleased to accord a representation in the history of Wallowa county, since he has trod the path of the pioneer in a worthy manner, displaying constantly qualities of moral worth and value, and has achieved a success in temporal affairs that is commendable and praiseworthy, being the meed of continuity in wisely directed effort and energy and sagacity in all of his ways, and consequently it is very fitting that he should be placed to-day as one of the prominent men of the county, which position he … Read more