New Bridge (or Newbridge) 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 ...

in Baker County,

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 ...

, about three miles north of Richland and

Oregon Route 86 Oregon Route 86 is an Oregon state highway running from Interstate 84 (Oregon), Interstate 84 at Baker City, Oregon, Baker City to the Idaho state line at Oxbow, OR, Oxbow (near the former site of Copperfield, OR, Copperfield). OR 86 comprises ...

. Its elevation is .

History

New Bridge was founded on the banks of Eagle Creek near an important bridge built across the stream in

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

times.

Joseph Gale Joseph Goff Gale (April 29, 1807 – December 13, 1881) was an American pioneer, trapper, entrepreneur, and politician who contributed to the early settlement of the Oregon Country. There he assisted in the construction of the first sailing vesse ...

was the first postmaster of New Bridge post office, which ran from 1878 until 1967. The town was originally in Union County until 1901, when the boundaries were changed to eliminate the

panhandle A salient, panhandle, or bootheel is an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. While similar to a peninsula in shape, a salient is most often not surrounded by water on three sides. Ins ...

in which New Bridge was located. New Bridge was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted in 1908, "only after irreversible decline had set in". New Bridge sold agricultural products from the Eagle Valley to miners near

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

. It had a fruit and vegetable cannery, a box factory, and a packing shed for apples. The decline of New Bridge was due in part to nearby Richland being platted in 1897.

References

Unincorporated communities in Baker County, Oregon Populated places established in the 1870s 1878 establishments in Oregon Populated places established in 1878 Unincorporated communities in Oregon {{BakerCountyOR-geo-stub