Auburn is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in rural
Baker County, Oregon, United States.
Auburn lies off
Oregon Route 7 southwest of
Baker City and east of
McEwen on the edge of the
Blue Mountains.
Auburn is deserted today, but the former
gold mining
Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining.
Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...
boomtown
A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although t ...
was once the largest community in
Eastern Oregon.
Auburn only had one or two buildings until 1861, when gold was discovered in the area.
[ By September 1862, Auburn had grown into a full-fledged town with over 20 stores and 1000 homes to serve the mining industry.]county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of Baker County, but by the 1870s Auburn was largely deserted,[ with a population of 200 people in 1873.]post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
, the first in northeast Oregon, closed in 1903.
See also
*List of ghost towns in Oregon
According to several historians, the United States, U.S. state of Oregon contains over 200 ghost towns. Professor and historian Stephen Arndt has counted a total of 256 ghost towns in the state, some well known, others "really obscure." The hig ...
References
Further reading
*Bright, Verne. "Blue Mountain Eldorados: Auburn, 1861." '' Oregon Historical Quarterly'' 62, 1961: 213-236
*McLoughlin, Virginia Duffy. "Cynthia Stafford and the Lost Mining Town of Auburn." '' Oregon Historical Quarterly'' 98, 1997: 6-55
External links
*
Ghost towns in Oregon
Former populated places in Baker County, Oregon
Populated places established in 1861
1861 establishments in Oregon
Former county seats in Oregon
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