Dredge up Oregon’s gold mining past in the Sumpter Valley

SUMPTER, Ore. — The beauty of traveling Oregon’s back roads and byways is the unexpected treasure that you may find along the way – not just the scenery, but interesting lessons about Oregon’s past.

When the whistle blows near Sumpter, Oregon one thing’s for sure: adventure isn’t far behind!

“Last call! Train Number One to Sumpter departing in five minutes!” called Sumpter Railroad Conductor Daniel Bentz.

The young man strolled across the wooden planks of the McEwen Depot and played his part well in a period costume and a full-on character performance.

“So hurry and buy a ticket,” he continued, “then step aboard the ‘Stump Dodger’ because even a century later, this railroad is always on time.”

Up to four times a day, Baker County’s Sumpter Valley Railroad makes the 12-mile round-trip run from McEwen Depot to Sumpter, Oregon.

It’s a railroad that reaches back to the early days of settlement in northeastern Oregon, according to the railroad’s operations manager, Taylor Rush.

“The railway meandered in and out of every canyon throughout the Sumpter Valley as it followed the timber line in the 1880s,” Rush said. “In those days, they said the railroad engine would dodge the stumps as it crawled up into the mountains and that name just stuck.”

“The original purpose of the railroad was to haul logs down to mills in Baker City where they were cut and hauled out across the nation,” Bentz added. “But the railroad also hauled regular goods, passengers and during cattle season there would be long stock trains heading down to the valley.”

These days, tourists have replaced the cattle and timber. Folks travel here from all over the country to escape city hubbub and settle in for a slower pace and also learn more about Baker County‘s past — especially the county’s gold mining past, when giant gold mining dredges turned the Powder River and greater Sumpter area upside down for miles around.

Decades later, the tailing’s piles undulate like snakes across the valley floor.

“They (the dredges) chewed up the rock, sifted out the gold and then shot the rock out the back end of the floating dredge,” Bentz explained. “It was amazing, but it also damaged the valley’s environment. Remember, this was long before major environmental laws were passed and no one was really concerned about it!”

When you reach the town site of Sumpter, stroll a couple of blocks and go aboard a unique Oregon State Park. The Sumpter Dredge offers you a chance to learn more about the area’s golden past.

Square-bowed and built of steel and wood and iron, three giant dredges lifted and sifted the terrain, reaping a golden harvest worth $12 million during the peak of the depression era.

Today, it is a park that holds on to history and takes visitors aboard to see and touch the past at the Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area.

“Each bucket (there are 72 total) on this dredge would pick up about 9 cubic feet of material. It would wash the gold off the rocks and would drop through into some sluice boxes and then out the back,” said Park Ranger Garret Nelson.

Inside the heart of the dredge — big as a barn and filled with gears and belts, winches and pumps — the rock passed through steel cylinders, separating rocks by size before water and sluices separated the gold from the dirt.

Rella Pfleeger-Brown is the assistant park ranger and guides visitors aboard the dredge. She pointed out how the buckets moved like the chain links of a chainsaw, bored into the riverbank and carried loose rock back into the dredge’s hulking interior.

Water and sluices separated the gold from the sediment and the spoils from this process were discharged behind the behemoth as it moved across the valley. Miners removed nine tons of gold in 19 years.

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