A Deeper Look: Lake County

Goose Lake, Lake County, OR

But He made his own people go forth like sheep, And guided them in the wilderness like a flock. Psalm 78:52

We are looking at a new region this week. The southeastern corner of Oregon is unofficially called the Oregon Outback and is the most uninhabited region in the state. It is traditionally Harney and Malheur with parts of Lake and Klamath counties. We will focus on Lake County, but first we will look at the region as a whole.

Statistics can be interesting, and sometimes put things in perspective. The entire state of Oregon is 95,997 square miles. The total area of Lake, Harney, and Malheur Counties is 28,488 square miles. That is roughly 30% of the state by area. Our total population (2022) is 4,259,743. The total population for the three counties is 47,103 (and 31,623 of that is Malheur County). That is a little over 1% of the population of Oregon living on 30% of the land area.

The area is high desert, about 4,000 feet in elevation with mountain ranges higher. The basin area is known for its lakes (especially Lake County). Average rainfall is about 10 inches, but as high as 30 inches in the mountains. Most of the region is BLM land – public land – with ranchers having grazing rights.

Lake County, OR

The low population and vast areas of rangeland create lifestyles and attitudes at variance with the more urban parts of the state. Some Oregon counties have crime rates dominated by property theft, substance abuse and issues related to homelessness, but in the Outback livestock take a lot of law enforcement energy and time. The Sheriffs of these counties often deal with lost or wandering horses and cows, neglected animals, and other (relatively speaking) minor issues.

 However, cattle are big business and theft (or rustling) is a major problem in these remote areas. Cattle are turned out on the range in the spring and not rounded up until fall, so thefts go undetected for months leaving little for law officers to go on. The rustlers are familiar with the back roads and terrain and can work under cover of darkness or bad weather. There are some areas in Harney and Malheur so remote they can only be reached by driving around through Nevada. Rustlers take advantage of the remoteness to round up a significant number of cattle, haul them to Nevada and from there sell them – often in states that do not require or inspect brands. Many of the rustlers, according to the Oregon State Sheriffs Association magazine, are ranch hands stealing from their employers.

Lake County was established in 1874 from parts of Wasco and Jackson counties. The county seat is Lakeview. The county was named due to the many lakes in the region. In pioneer times, with poor access to the rest of the state, the county was oriented more towards California. During the mid-1800’s the county was part of the military corridor between The Dalles and the Presidio in San Francisco. When a railroad was built in 1890, the county became more connected with the rest of the state.

New Pine Creek, established in 1876, is the oldest settlement in Lake County. It is also the most southerly settlement in the state and the little town – around 100 residents - resides partly in Oregon and partly in California.

In 1886 a Church of Christ minister, John Sutherland and his wife, Nancy, built a Church of Christ building in New Pine Creek. For a number of years it was on the California side of the town, but later it was moved a block inside the Oregon line. A Baptist church was also built in the early days of the little community.

John Sutherland was born in Missouri in 1846. He became a Christian at 15 and studied for the ministry under his uncle, Nathan Buchanan. He joined the Union army during the Civil War and met his future wife, Nancy, when he was home recuperating from a war wound. They married after the war when he was 19 and she was 16. After their marriage, they took the Oregon/California trail to northern California where John began preaching. He believed in working for a living and building and pastoring churches for free. They later moved to New Pine Creek in 1876, the year the town was established, and started the first Church of Christ congregation there. However, there was little employment available, so they moved on. Eleven years later they came back and he used his carpentry skills to build the first Church of Christ building. They built a homestead on the shores of Goose Lake, a large alkaline lake that straddles the Oregon-California border near New Pine Creek.

John is a good example of the ministers who founded such congregations (of numerous denominations) all over Oregon. Every county has dozens of similar stories of humble, hardworking itinerant ministers who built churches with their own hands, held funerals and weddings, and preached to small local congregations, often including circuit riding to their tasks of raising large families and farming or holding down jobs to pay the bills.

The county is governed by a board of commissioners. Currently the commissioners are Barry Shullanberger, James Williams, and Mark Albertson. The County Sheriff is Michael Taylor.

How do we pray for Lake County?

The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose; Isaiah 35:1

Pray for the County Commissioners: Barry Shullanberger, James Williams, and Mark Albertson.

Pray for the Sheriff, Michael Taylor, and all the law enforcement groups that deal with the unique issues in remote, rural Oregon from cattle rustling to search and rescue.

Pray for the various churches in Lake County.