Baker County Library, Oregon
DIGITAL ARCHIVE
OF HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS
Welcome to a "webcam back in time."

The archives of Baker County Library contain over 8,000 historic photographs. This website contains over 6,413 digitized records of those images.

UPDATE: In April 2009, Baker County Library's Historic Photo Website was relaunched with a major update that increased the number of photos by almost three fold. Previously the website offered 2,210 historic photos. It now contains 6,413 photos in six "Galleries."

To ENTER a gallery, CLICK on an image at LEFT or a link from the following list.

• Gallery 1: Baker City (1,805 photos)
• Gallery 2:  Small Towns & Ghost Towns (894 photos)
• Gallery 3: Mines & Mining (1,050 photos)  
• Gallery 4: Transportation (275) & Forest Industry (67) (341 photos total)
• Gallery 5: People (776), Schools (450), Organizations (141), & Churches (86) (1,540 photos total) 
• Gallery 6: Scenic (324), Agriculture (203), Military (113), Fire Dept (92), Sports (43), Music (10). (783 photos total)

SEARCH TIP: Each gallery is individually searchable by keyword or can be browsed from the first photograph onward. Access the Table of Contents link to sort records by title, place, creator, or date.

HISTORY: Baker County is located in northeastern Oregon bounded on the east by Snake River and Idaho. When wagon trains started rolling west on the Oregon Trail in 1843, they met their first significant natural obstacle upon entering Burnt River Canyon at Baker County's southeastern corner. It was there they said goodbye to Snake River at Farewell Bend and started up narrow Burnt River Canyon, whose walls forced the exhausted pioneers and their animals into frequent crossings of the rocky river bottom or up onto the steep hillside. Many died in the canyon, animals from starvation and exhaustion, people from disease and accidents. Upon leaving Burnt River northwest of Durkee, Oregon, the travelers crossed a sagebrush-covered ridge from the top of which they got their first glimpse of lush Baker Valley and the best grass for their animals since leaving Missouri.

For years travelers passed through Baker County on their way to the Willamette Valley in western Oregon leaving the area east of the Cascade Mountains virtually unsettled. That changed after the October 1861 discovery of gold near the south end of Powder Valley. By the end of the summer the area's population grew from nothing to over 4,000, prompting the Oregon legislature in the fall of 1862 to create Baker County, named for Oregon's first senator, Edward Dickinson Baker, who had been killed in 1861 in one of the first battles of the Civil War, the only member of Congress to die in that struggle.

ABOUT THE PROJECT: This website is dedicated to the memory of Pearl Hayden Jones, Grace Lewis, & Dorothy York, three dedicated volunteers who worked on this photo collection for many years. It is maintained by Gary Dielman, local author, historian, and volunteer curator/archivist of the Baker County Library's historic photo collection for over twenty years.

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT:The contents of the Baker County Library Historic Photograph Archive are publicly available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Users must credit the “Baker County Library” when reproducing images or texts in any context as all items may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Materials may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from the the Baker County Library District. More... >>

HOW TO HELP: For the donation or loan of photos to be digitized and added to the Baker County Library photo archive project, please inquire by phone, email, or postal address listed below. Monetary contributions help provide archival supplies and are also gratefully received. Please also consider volunteering to help index or digitize items for the archive. Thank you for your support!

Baker County Library District, 2400 Resort St., Baker City, Oregon 97814
Ph. 541-523-6419 tubingen@eoni.com
Last modified on: May 4, 2009