Sod House Ranch

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“The Sod House Ranch is a historic ranch in Harney County in southeastern Oregon, United States. The remaining ranch structures are located south of Malheur Lake in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.”
Wikipedia article Sod House Ranch, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 7 National Register listings published here for Harney County · listed in 1979 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. S of Burns, Burns, 97721
When was it listed? January 1979
Category. district
Census division. Diamond
National Register reference number. 79002061 - 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

28 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 28 fires within 5 miles of Sod House Ranch between 1992 and 2020, burning about 11,509 acres in total. 10 started naturally. 4 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	10
Debris and open burning	8
Arson/incendiarism	4
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3

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
27 September 2004	Equipment and vehicle use	500 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	PETER FRENCH
25 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	148 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	TULE
14 September 1993	Debris and open burning	50 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	TAYLOR
30 August 2007	Natural	3.0 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	OR-MAR-7408
30 August 2002	Natural	under an acre	Burns District	2324
28 August 1996	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	BONE YARD
27 August 2002	Natural	12 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	GRAVY
12 August 2016	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Malheur National Wildlife Refuge	SODHOUSE

Every fire recorded in Harney County

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Sod House Ranch: 3 occurrences, 2 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Zeolites, 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.

Site	Commodity	Status
Church Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
Church Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Sodhouse Spring	Geothermal	Occurrence
Church Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Church Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Harney Lake Zeolites	Zeolites	Occurrence
Harney Lake Zeolites	Zeolites	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Harney County

Storms near this property

12 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Burns, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 3 flood, 2 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
March 2025	Flood	Burns	$1,000,000	Hundreds of homes were impacted by flood waters, many with major damage and some were uninhabitable. Numerous residents were evacuated during the height of the flooding with some sheltering in hotels and Red Cross mass care facilities. There was extensive damage to sewer system.
September 1997	Tornado (F0)	Burns	$15,000	During the evening of September 15th a small tornado struck the ranch of Rick and Judy Hoyt near Burns, Oregon. The short lived tornado twisted and snapped a pine tree, threw large bails of hay, broke a window and damaged power lines around the homestead. A witness in nearby Hines, Oregon reported seeing a funnel cloud around the same time.
April 2025	Flood	Burns	-	Hundreds of homes were impacted by flood waters, many with major damage and some were uninhabitable. Numerous residents were evacuated during the height of the flooding with some sheltering in hotels and Red Cross mass care facilities. Extensive damage to sewer system.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Burns	-	Mesonet Station OD152 recorded a 58 mph wind gust as showers passed overhead. No damages were reported.
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Burns	-	Harney County Dispatch reported trees and power lines down in Burns due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
March 2017	Flood	Burns	-	Flooding occurred along the Silvies River around the Burns, Oregon area and surrounding fields and roads.
July 2009	Hail	Burns	-	A trained spotter reported hail ranging from one half to three quarters of an inch.
July 2001	Hail	Burns	-	Spotter at 11 NE Burns reported windows broken by 1.75 inch hail.
August 2001	Tornado (F0)	Burns	-	Tornado touched down briefly in the southeast section of Burns.
August 2001	Tornado (F0)	Burns	-	Tornado touched down briefly 6 miles southeast of Burns near Wright's Point.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Burns	-	no account filed
May 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Burns	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Harney 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 79002061 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Harney County	All 7 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.