The Lone Tree of the Oregon Trail

The tree lasted until the first big wagon train. Trappers called it l'arbre seul, and in 1839 Sidney Smith wrote that no other pine stood in sight. On September 27, 1843, Peter Burnett, traveling with the great migration, recorded that some of his party had cut it down for firewood and found it too green to burn. John Fremont came through a couple of weeks later and found only the stump, felled, he wrote, by some inconsiderate emigrant axe. Travelers afterward called the place the Lone Pine Stump. It stood where the trail crossed Baldock Slough.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center — 1.3 mi
  A hilltop museum that Baker City built to revive its economy, above a mile of wagon ruts and the first view the emigrants had of the valley ahead.

More markers nearby

• The Lure of Gold — 1.1 mi
• Baker — 3.5 mi
• Cattle Drives — 11 mi
• Durkee — 21 mi