Bingham Springs is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Umatilla County Umatilla County () is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. The population of 81,826 ranks it as the 14th largest in Oregon, and largest in Eastern Oregon. Hermiston is the largest city in Umatilla County, but Pendleton remain ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, United States. It is about east of

Gibbon Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical forests from eastern Bangladesh and Northeast Indi ...

in the Blue Mountains near the

Umatilla River The Umatilla River is an tributary of the Columbia River in northern Umatilla County, Oregon, Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. drainage basin, Draining a basin of , it enters the Columbia near the city of Umatilla, Oregon, Umatilla in the ...

. Bingham Springs was a station and

tollgate A tollbooth (or toll booth) is an enclosure placed along a toll road that is used for the purpose of collecting a Toll (fee), toll from passing traffic. A structure consisting of several tollbooths placed next to each other is called a toll p ...

on the Thomas and Ruckle

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

line through the Blue Mountains. The stage house was built in 1864. Alfred B. Meacham operated the station from 1867 to 1868. There was a post office at the locale named "Purdy" from 1881 until 1891, named after one of the early owners of the stage house. Later, the community had a Gibbon mailing address, and today it receives its mail through

Adams Adams may refer to: * For persons, see Adams (surname) Places United States *Adams, California *Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California * Adams, Decatur County, Indiana *Adams, Kentucky *Adams, Massachusetts, a New England to ...

. Beginning in the late 19th century, Bingham Springs was the site of a popular

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

resort. Today the hot mineral water is a feature of the pool at Bar M Ranch, a

dude ranch A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agrotourism. History Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...

founded in the 1940s that uses the historic stage house as its ranch house. Notable guests of the resort include President

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously ...

and then-Secretary of State

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...

Climate

This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above . According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Bingham Springs has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate ( ), also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps.

References

External links

Historic image of Bingham Springs
from Salem Public Library
Historic image of Bar-M Ranch
from Salem Public Library Unincorporated communities in Umatilla County, Oregon Spa towns in Oregon 1881 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1881 Unincorporated communities in Oregon {{UmatillaCountyOR-geo-stub