Ghost Towns and Gold Towns
The best tour for getting a glimpse of Oregon’s early ranching and gold mining days is to explore the north central high desert country. In this remote country you can see old ghost towns, expansive range land, painted hills, Ponderosa Pine forests, and the abandoned dredges of Oregon’s most lucrative gold mining district.

You start your tour in the ghost town of Shaniko. Around the turn of the century, Shaniko was the heart of the sheep farming in Oregon and local ranches shipping tons of wool out of the area on rail cars. The town has been fixed up lately to show what it looked like when it bustled around the turn of the century. After checking out the town we start riding west towards the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Passing through the small towns of Antelope, Clarno, and Fossil you will get an appreciation for how little things have changed in these small towns.

Between Fossil and Ukiah there are a couple of choices for your route – a southerly route though the towns of Spray and Monument, or the northerly route through Condon and Heppner. Both routes take you through some stunning high desert country with climbs up to 3000 and 4000 feet. The northern route has more climbing up and down across the hills while the southern route follows the John Day drainage for much of the route. There are no easy routes in this country as the southern route ends up with two 4000 foot climbs in one day.

Heading east out of Ukiah we climb up into the Elkhorn Mountains where we find another near ghost town – Granite. Founded after gold was discovered in the area in 1862, Granite was at its zenith in the 1940’s with a population of 86.

As we head towards Sumpter we see more and more evidence of the mining that occurred in the area between 1862 and 1953. The whole Sumpter Valley was dug up and spit out by three gigantic dredges to get the gold out of the Powder River riverbed. Over the years the dredges pulled over $4.5 million worth of gold out of the river. The last dredge can now be viewed at the Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area in the same location where it was shut down in 1954. After visiting the Heritage Area we continue on down the Sumpter Valley and on to Baker City.

Baker City for many years was the center of the mining business and during the 1870's and 1880's was probably the most colorful town in the Pacific Northwest. At the turn of the century, Baker City housed elegant restaurants in fine hotels, the Baker Theatre and all kinds of saloons, gambling houses and hurdy‐gurdy dance halls.

To cap off our tour though mine country you will want to stop in at the U.S. National Bank to view the impressive 80.4 ounce Armstrong Gold Nugget, found in the area by George Armstrong in 1913 and then walk across the street for a stay in the Geiser Grand Hotel which was built in 1889 and is registered as a National Historic Landmark.

Given the remoteness of the area there are limited options for other events and activities.

Examples of these include:

• Sumpter Valley Railway ride
• Granite High Country Bash in Granite
• Blue Mountain Ol' Time Fiddlers concert
• Miners' Jubilee in Baker City
• Elkhorn Classic bicycle race in Baker City

Use our Events Calendar to include these and other events and activities in your own custom tour.