Ghost Mine

About this Story

Oregon's gold rush country lies high in the rugged Elkhorn Mountains, southeast of the Wallowas, and east of Baker City. You can find signs of abandoned mining history and mines scattered on public lands throughout the region. Rusted metal, gears, and old industrial equipment abound. Here we find an abandoned mine site... Then travel to Sumpter, Oregon - where a State Park preserves the magnificently terrible Sumpter Dredge, a barge that dug out it's own holding pond wherever it went - turning much of the valley floor to piles of rock visible today. A trout survives in a roadside stream near Granite - dredge tailings at streamside. industry, climate change, industrial waste