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

The Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the billion dollar class action lawsuit between survivors of four 2020 Labor Day Fires and PacifiCorp.

The state’s high court will hear arguments at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Salem, in a case with billions on the line for thousands of victims impacted by one of the worst disasters in state history.

The review represents a win for wildfire survivors, many of whom live in the Santiam Canyon and lost everything in the fires, and who stood to lose billions in jury awards following an April decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

How did we get here?

In June 2023, a Multnomah County jury found PacifiCorp at fault for causing the Santiam, Echo Mountain, 242 and South Obenchain fires and liable to a class of roughly 2,000 victims.

In the years since the verdict, juries have awarded more than $1.2 billion to 189 wildfire survivors, over the course of 18 “mini trials” designed to determine awards to fire victims.

On April 8, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled the 2023 verdict was flawed, writing that instructions to the jury were “prejudicial to PacifiCorp.”

The appeals court reversed and remanded the case, which would have wiped out all awards and previous legal decisions.

Lawyers for the wildfire victims filed an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court, also in April, and the high court granted certiorari on June 25.

The timeline for Oregon’s high court hearing the case appears swifter than normal, perhaps representing the need to bring some resolution for a case that’s been ongoing for five years.  

“The thousands of Oregonians whose homes PacifiCorp burned are grateful that the Oregon Supreme Court will hear their case quickly,” lead council for the wildfire victims said in a statement.

PacifiCorp issued a statement saying they expected the court of appeals decision to be upheld.

“We respect the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision to review the case and will continue to participate fully in the process, presenting our position through the Court’s established briefing schedule,” a statement from PacifiCorp said. “We look forward to the Court’s consideration of the key issues and to the Court affirming the unanimous Oregon Court of Appeals decision.”

What will the court decide?

In reversing the original verdict, the Court of Appeals ruled that a set of instructions given to the jury, in the 2023 case, was in error and prejudicial to PacifiCorp.

The offending instruction, the ruling said, centered on the trial court telling the jury that it could “assume that the evidence at the trial applies to all class members.”

“We conclude … that instruction was legally erroneous, because certain evidence at trial, particularly related to causation, did not necessarily apply to every class member,” the appeals court wrote.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that “the challenged instruction was appropriate” and that the Court of Appeals ruling “rests on a misinterpretation that no party held at trial and no juror adopted,” they wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court.  

In a news release announcing it would take up the case, the Supreme Court said it would examine the jury instructions and ruling by the appeals court.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 18 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors and BlueSky at oregonoutdoors.bsky.social

The National Weather Service says there is no tsunami threat following a magnitude 5.5 earthquake off the Oregon coast.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck at 4:35 a.m. about 175 miles southwest of Eugene, Oregon, at a depth of about 6 miles in the Pacific Ocean.

National Weather Service says no tsunami threat after 5.5 quake off Oregon coast (KVAL/SBG)

The earthquake occurred in the Blanco Fracture Zone, a seismically active area where hundreds of earthquakes occur each year.

There have been no reports of residents along the southern Oregon coast feeling the quake.

This is a developing story.