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Sumpter School Photos
Sumpter:
Sumpter lies 30 miles to the west of Baker City in the mountains. This town has
known the bold boom of success, suffered ghost town status and is today known as
a progressive but historic tourist attraction. The Valley’s rock piles show the
devastation left by the gold dredging, a “Yuba” style dredge still remains
resting where it was shut down in the early 1950s. The Sumpter Valley Railway
was built to serve the area’s forests, mines, ranches and homes. For some
additional pictures of the Sumpter Valley Railway (at the bottom) visit
Eve 'N' Stephen's home
page, and also say Hi! to
Zsa Zsa
Gaburro, she is right there to great you on the main page.
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| Open air stage in Sumpter, about ready to leave for
Bourne City ~ 1901 |
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Eastern Oregon Gold Fields ~
Learn all about the colorful history of Baker County with this great book.
Pages contain biographies, Histories of Towns, Gold Mines, Baker City, Baker
County,
Sumpter and so much more!!
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Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge
The Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge began operating in 1935,
Closed August 1954. Employing 23, dredging was done 24 hours daily
except July 4th and Christmas.
The 72, 1 ton 9 cubic foot buckets dumped 25
buckets/min for overage production of 280,000 cubic yards per month.
The 250 hp. bucket line motor powered by 12 miles, 23,000 volt electric
line from a portable substation, 3,000 gpm of water supplied by 2.10 inch
pumps with 24 inch American jigs and sluice boxes for gold recovery. Boat
hull measured 52x120x11 feet. Stacker is 96 feet long.
Dredge cost $300,000 and produced $4.5 million in gold. |
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Sumpter before the Fire 1917
In 1900, Sumpter Valley was the richest gold producing area in the country
and the town of Sumpter was booming.
When the more easily obtained gold was mined out, a
dredge was placed in service to extract gold from the gravels along
Cracker Creek.
On August 13, 1917, a kitchen fire at Sumpter's Capitol
Hotel quickly spread to adjacent wooden buildings. The fire, fanned
by dry winds, spread from street to street.
By evening, all the buildings in Sumpter's twelve block
business district were destroyed. Approximately sixty homes burned
and two hundred fifty people were left homeless.
Today, little remains of the original town of Sumpter.
The Sumpter Valley dredge continued operating until WWII, and left mile
upon mile of gravel tailings in its wake.
More great Baker County Historic Photos
More information on Sumpter on this
Site
Biographies |
Mines |
Business |
City of Sumpter |
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Baker County Towns |
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Oregon Counties |
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Oregon Genealogy Records |
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Other Genealogy Records |
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