Continue to Stand in the Gap: Baker County

Sumpter Mining Dredge, Baker County, Oregon

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Psalm 23: 1-3

In the next few weeks, we will take a deeper look at the North East Region of Oregon which includes the Counties of Baker, Wallowa, Union, Grant, Umatilla, and Morrow. The North East corner is a very scenic portion of the state with mountains, deep lakes, as well as dry plateaus, and wide-open spaces as we move to the west. Baker, just north of Malheur, is the first county on the list, and a particularly beautiful one with a rich history. 

Baker County has three County Commissioners: Shane Alderson is the Commission Chair, Bruce Nichols is in Position one, and Christina Witham is in Position two.

The County Sheriff is Travis Ash, who oversees over 3,000 square miles of rugged county with a population of 16,000.

Baker City is the county seat. Some of Baker County history can be found here, here, and here.

Baker County

The 2024 short session of the Oregon legislature began on February 5^th. One of the main issues to address is fixing or repealing Measure 110, the law passed by voters in 2020 to decriminalize illegal drug possession. The consensus among both Republicans and Democrats is that the measure did not work out well, not getting drug addicts into treatment, and increasing drug problems on the street as well as fueling the homelessness situation. Oregon State Senator Lynn Findley was recently quoted in the Baker City Herald as saying, “It is broken and we need to fix it.” Senator Findley represents Oregon Senate District 30, which includes Baker, Grant, Crook, Harney, Lake, and Malheur Counties as well as parts of Deschutes and Jefferson. Representative Greg Smith, who represents District 57 – a large portion of eastern Oregon - agrees with him.  Senator Bill Hansell, another eastern Oregon Senator, also hopes the bill will be significantly changed. Keep these three Republican legislators and others representing Baker County and eastern Oregon in prayer as they work through this issue.

  The current Baker County Sheriff’s Office faces some challenges enforcing the law in the large, rugged county – keep them in prayer - but an early Sheriff and Tax Collector of Baker County was part of one of the more famous “unsolved mysteries” of the intermountain west.

Harvey K. Brown was raised on a homestead a few miles out of Baker City. He was born in 1871 and as an adult worked in various places around the west before becoming a farmer and county commissioner in Baker County. His mother was a devout Methodist, and Harvey appears to have been an upstanding citizen of the county. In 1902 he was elected Sheriff and Tax Collector and began cleaning up the tax accounts, which ultimately led to him arresting the man who had held the position before him for embezzlement. Also during this time, he arrested a local murderer and then saved him from a lynch mob when locals thought the man would plead insanity for his crime. He eventually oversaw the legal hanging of the man, the second-from-last public execution in the state. He then proceeded to clear Baker City of a variety of unlawful activities. 

These events solidified his reputation as a law enforcer, and he was elected to a second term in 1904. In 1905 he happened to be in Boise when the former governor of Idaho, Frank Steunenberger, was assassinated by a bomb at his front gate. During the investigation, Sheriff Brown was able to link the accused assassin to a mining camp in Baker County and was involved in the man’s arrest for murder. The bomber, Harry Orchard, confessed to the murder as well as others and implicated the leadership of the Western Federation of Miners. The bombing was supposedly revenge against the Governor for breaking a miner’s strike in Idaho during his term. Sherrif Brown was again involved when a Baker County individual was found to corroborate the miner’s union involvement. However, that person changed his story and on September 30, 1907, while the trial of a Federation official was underway for arranging the murder of the Idaho governor, the by-now-former Sherriff Brown was killed in the same manner as the governor – a bomb at his home gatepost. Without a corroborating witness, no one was ever convicted of the governor’s murder, and no one knows who killed Sheriff Brown, although Harry Orchard did spend his life in prison.

Thanks to this blogger for the account.