150 Years of Eastern Oregon History

Book excerpt: This book is a real story about an ordinary family from Albia, Iowa, who in 1862 crossed the Oregon Trail and settled in the lower Powder River Valley in what today is Baker City, Oregon. Within two years, family members were part of a thriving dry-goods and mercantile business in the gold-mining town of Mormon Basin, selling rubber boots, shovels, and liquor to both American and Chinese miners. By the late 1860s, the easy gold had been panned and sluiced out so the miners moved on to chase bigger dreams in newer places. So too did some of the family members; they sold their business interests and with a saddlebag full of gold rode north to Umatilla County, Oregon, where in 1871 they started a ranch and cattle business. Portions of James Shumway’s Couse Creek Ranch near Milton-Freewater are still owned by descendants; it is an Oregon State Centennial Ranch. This book uses old photographs, letters, documents, business journals, personal diaries, and contemporary research to recount 150 years of Barton–Shumway family history in eastern Oregon. It is a story told through the lives of some of the real people who survived it.