Photograph of Wells Springs Segment — Photograph by Glenn Scofield Williams ( glennwilliamspdx at Flickr ), CC BY 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Oregon Trail, Wells Springs Segment

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

From the record

“The Oregon Trail, Wells Springs Segment, also known as the Oregon Trail, Boardman Bombing Range Segment, is part of an historic east-west migration route crossing Morrow County in the U.S. state of Oregon. About 250,000 emigrants from the United States used the trail between the 1830s and 1869 to travel between the U.S. state of Missouri and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon.”
Wikipedia article Oregon Trail, Wells Springs Segment, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 5 National Register listings published here for Morrow County · listed in 1978 · category: Site.

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

The listing

Address. S of Boardman, Boardman, 97818
When was it listed? September 1978
Category. site
Census division. Boardman
National Register reference number. 78002305 - 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

1 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Oregon Trail, Wells Springs Segment in 2008, burning about 78,000 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was 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	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
29 June 2008	Natural	78,000 acres	Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge	COAL PLANT

Every fire recorded in Morrow County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Oregon Trail, Wells Springs Segment: 3 producers, 2 past producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Geothermal. 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
Wells Spring	Geothermal	Producer
Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Rivercrest	Stone	Past Producer
Rivercrest Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Unnamed Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Morrow County

Storms near this property

12 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Boardman, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2020: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 wildfire, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 injury. 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
August 2000	Lightning	Boardman	1 hurt, $20,000	no account filed
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Boardman	$500,000	no account filed
May 2006	Tornado (F1)	Boardman	$20,000	Swirling ground debris beneath funnel cloud. Tractor trailer rig blown off Interstate 84.
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Boardman	-	Tree down in Boardman.
September 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Boardman	-	Estimated wind gusts 80 mph.
September 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Boardman	-	Public reported several power poles downed.
July 1998	Wildfire	Boardman	-	Lightning caused a brush fire on the Naval Bombing range south of Boradman that burned more than 30,000 acres. Strong shifting wind, difficult terrain, and heavy brush hampered fire fighting efforts. One hundred fifty Naval and civilian fire fighters fought the fire.
June 2010	Funnel Cloud	Boardman	-	no account filed
March 2006	Flash Flood	Boardman	-	no account filed
May 2006	Hail	Boardman	-	no account filed
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Boardman	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	Boardman	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Morrow 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 78002305 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Morrow County	All 5 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.