Mitchell Recreation Area

Built in 1950. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

From the record

“Mitchell Recreation Area is a small picnic area located in the Fremont-Winema National Forests, Lake County, Oregon, near the unincorporated community of Bly. In it stands the Mitchell Monument, erected in 1950, which marks the only location in the United States where Americans were killed during World War II as a direct result of a Japanese balloon bomb.”
Wikipedia article Mitchell Recreation Area, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 14 National Register listings published here for Lake County · listed in 2003 · category: Site · built in 1950.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Forest Service Rd. 34, Fremont National Forest, Bly
When was it listed? February 2003
Category. site
Census division. Lakeview
When was it built? 1950
National Register reference number. 03000050 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

68 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Mitchell Recreation Area between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,150 acres in total. 55 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	55
Recreation and ceremony	5
Arson/incendiarism	2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Debris and open burning	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 2017	Natural	under an acre	Fremont-Winema National Forest	JACK
3 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fremont-Winema National Forest	CORRAL
29 September 2019	Arson/incendiarism	3.2 acres	Fremont-Winema National Forest	UTLEY
28 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Fremont-Winema National Forest	ELDER-295
2 September 1994	Natural	under an acre	Lake Unit	BILL
2 September 1994	Natural	under an acre	Lake Unit	FUDD
16 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Lake Unit	STINGER
12 September 2001	Natural	under an acre	Fremont-Winema National Forest	WHISKEY

Every fire recorded in Lake County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Mitchell Recreation Area: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Campbell	Stone	Past Producer
	Campbell Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Lake County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 03000050 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Lake County	All 14 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.