Photograph of Rinehart Stone House Museum — Photograph by Surv1v4l1st, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Old Stone House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

From the record

“The Old Stone House, also known as the Stone House Hotel, Rinehart House or Rinehart Stone House Museum, is a building and museum located in Vale, Oregon, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was the first permanent building in the community of "Stone House", renamed to "Vale" in 1887.”
Wikipedia article Old Stone House (Vale, Oregon), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 19 National Register listings published here for Malheur County · listed in 1972 · category: Building.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 283 S. Main St., Vale, 97918
When was it listed? May 1972
Category. building
Census division. Vale
National Register reference number. 72001085 - 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

22 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 22 fires within 5 miles of Old Stone House between 1992 and 2020, burning about 6,222 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 5 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	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Arson/incendiarism	5
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Fireworks	1
Firearms and explosives use	1
Smoking	1
Recreation and ceremony	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
6 September 1997	Natural	under an acre	Vale District	JOHNSON GU
3 September 1995	Natural	1.0 acres	Vale District	BELKNAP
6 August 2012	Natural	4,099 acres	Vale District	LYTLE
3 August 2009	Natural	2.0 acres	Vale District	LITTLE VALE BUTTE
3 August 2009	Natural	3.0 acres	Vale District	VALE BUTTE
24 August 1995	Arson/incendiarism	100 acres	Vale District	RHIHART BU
20 August 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5.0 acres	Vale District	N HPR WL
2 August 2009	Natural	861 acres	Vale District	RHINEHART BUTTE 2

Every fire recorded in Malheur County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 32 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 32 workings within 5 miles of Old Stone House: 13 past producers, 12 producers, 4 occurrences, 3 prospects. 12 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Gold, Mercury, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Vale	Geothermal	Producer
Malheur River Bridge	Stone	Past Producer
Malheur River Bridge Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Oregon Clay Products	Clay	Past Producer
Oregon Clay Products Co.	Clay	Past Producer
Rhinehart Buttes	Stone	Past Producer
Rinehart Buttes Community Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Mercury Prospect	Mercury	Occurrence
Ontario & Pearl Groups	Mercury	Occurrence
Ontario and Pearl Groups	Mercury	Prospect

Every working recorded in Malheur County

Storms near this property

13 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Vale, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1996 and 2023: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2023	Hail	Vale	-	Severe hail around one inch shared via social media photos.
September 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	A strong outflow wind caused significant roof damage from a large, fallen tree.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Malheur County Sheriff dispatch reported several large trees and power lines down in Vale, Oregon and power outages in Ontario, Oregon.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Public relayed report to Malheur County Sheriff of broken tree branches in Vale with local winds to 60 or 70 MPH.
June 2010	Hail	Vale	-	A trained spotter near Vale reported 1 inch hail.
August 2010	Hail	Vale	-	Damage to corn and sugar beets was reported by the public near Willow Creek, Oregon.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	Malheur County Sheriffs Department reported downed trees and power lines.
July 2003	Hail	Vale	-	1.5 inch hail also occurred in Vale at 1600mst in Vale.
September 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	A severe thunderstorm toppled trees near Vale, Oregon.
May 2006	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
August 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Vale	-	no account filed
September 1996	Hail	Vale	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Malheur 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.

Listed places nearby

5 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
First Bank of Vale	under 500 feet	1992
Vale Drug Store	0.1 miles	2002
Rex Theater	0.1 miles	2022
Vale Hotel and Grand Opera House	0.3 miles	1984
Oregon Trail Historic District	5.7 miles	1975

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 72001085 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Malheur County	All 19 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.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.