Baker County was 1st official jurisdiction in Eastern Oregon – La Grande Observer

Baker County was 1st official jurisdiction in Eastern Oregon

Published 9:00 pm Monday, June 29, 2026

Although Native Americans had lived in what became Northeastern Oregon for millennia, when the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the better part of a century would pass before settlers began to start towns in the region.

Tens of thousands of immigrants rolled through the area, following the Oregon Trail, starting in the 1840s.

Although their destination was the trail’s end at Oregon City, and ultimately a farm in the Willamette Valley, eventually some retraced the ruts to the northeast corner of Oregon, which became the nation’s 33rd state on Feb. 14, 1859, while others halted their wagons in the valley of the Powder or Grande Ronde river, or in the Columbia Basin on the west side of the Blue Mountains.

The first post office in Eastern Oregon actually predates the state. The Umatilla post office was established on Sept. 26, 1851, although it was closer to present-day Echo than to the city of Umatilla. The post office closed just a year later.

The region’s first official jurisdiction was Baker County, which the Oregon Legislature carved out of Wasco County on Sept. 22, 1862.

That was prompted by the region’s first gold rush, which followed Henry Griffin’s discovery of gold in a gulch, a few miles southwest of what would become Baker City, on Oct. 23, 1861.

Just five days after designating Baker County, on Sept. 27, 1862, lawmakers shrunk Wasco County even more by creating Umatilla County.

Two years later, on Oct. 14, 1864 — apparently a busy day in Salem — the legislature added two more counties in Grant and Union.

Grant County was made of parts of Umatilla and Wasco counties, while Union County was originally part of Baker County.

On Oct. 14, 1887 — it’s not clear why Oct. 14 seems to have been 19th century lawmakers’ favorite day to create counties — the legislature designated a chunk of eastern Union County as Wallowa County.

In many cases, such as Umatilla, post offices were started before towns were incorporated.

And most cities in the region were settled years, or even decades, before they were incorporated.

People were living in what became Baker City, for instance, in 1863, but the city was platted in 1865 and incorporated in 1874, eight years after the post office was established.

La Grande was already a town when it was incorporated in 1865.

And two cities — Umatilla and Canyon City — were incorporated even earlier, in 1864.

Incorporation dates for other cities in the region:

Pendleton: 1880

Hermiston: 1907

Heppner: 1887

Boardman: 1921

Milton-Freewater: 1950 (Milton, 1873; Freewater, 1890)

Enterprise: 1889

Elgin: 1891

Echo: 1904

Haines: 1909

Halfway: 1909

Huntington: 1891

Imbler: 1922

Ione: 1903

Irrigon: 1957

Island City: 1904

John Day: 1901

Joseph: 1887

La Grande: 1865

Lexington: 1903

Long Creek: 1891

Mount Vernon: 1948

North Powder: 1903

Pilot Rock: 1911

Prairie City: 1891

Richland: 1917

Stanfield: 1910

Sumpter: 1901

Summerville: 1885

Union: 1878

Unity: 1972

Wallowa: 1899

Weston: 1878

Athena: 1904