Sumpter Valley Railway, Middle Fork-John Day River

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

From the record

“The Sumpter Valley Railway, Middle Fork Spur, near Bates, Oregon, was built in 1916. Also known as the Oregon Lumber Company Railroad, it was designed by engineer Joseph A.”
Wikipedia article Sumpter Valley Railway, Middle Fork (John Day River) Spur, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 9 National Register listings published here for Grant County · listed in 1987 · category: District.

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

The listing

Address. Sumpter Valley Railway's Middle Fork Spur between Bates and Susanville, Bates
When was it listed? August 1987
Category. district
Census division. Prairie City
National Register reference number. 87001066 - 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

137 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 137 fires within 5 miles of Sumpter Valley Railway, Middle Fork-John Day River between 1992 and 2020, burning about 3,116 acres in total. 107 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	107
Recreation and ceremony	20
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Debris and open burning	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2

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 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	OR-MAF-2012-12276
6 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	282 OR-MAF-19282
6 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	281 OR-MAF-19281
5 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	276 OR-MAF-19276
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	13411
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	13415
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	13410
5 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Malheur National Forest	13416

Every fire recorded in Grant County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 45 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 45 workings within 5 miles of Sumpter Valley Railway, Middle Fork-John Day River: 19 occurrences, 11 past producers, 8 prospects, 6 unknowns. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Gold, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Chromium, Gold, Copper. 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	Recorded
Dixie Meadow Mine	Gold, Zinc, Silver, Lead, Copper, Arsenic	Past Producer
Dixie Meadows	Gold, Arsenic, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Silver	Past Producer	Chalcopyrite, Galena, Marcasite, Pyrite, Pyrrhotite, Sphalerite
Gold Prospect	Gold, Silver, Copper	Occurrence	Chalcopyrite, Pyrite
Last Chance Group	Gold, Silver, Zinc, Copper, Cobalt, Nickel	Occurrence	Chalcopyrite, Galena, Pyrite, Pyrrhotite, Sphalerite
Prindle Claims	Gold, Copper, Cobalt	Occurrence
Prindle Property	Cobalt, Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc, Arsenic	Occurrence	Chalcopyrite, Covellite, Magnetite, Pyrite, Pyrrhotite, Sphalerite
Stahler Dan E.	Gold, Silver	Past Producer	Vein
Stalter	Gold, Silver	Past Producer
Thornton Scheelite Prospect	Tungsten, Silver, Gold	Occurrence	Replacement
Wagonwheel	Lead, Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc, Antimony	Occurrence	Vein

Every working recorded in Grant 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 87001066 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Grant County	All 9 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.