The Lure of Gold

The panel's gold rush built a town and lost it inside three years. Auburn went up in Blue Canyon in the spring of 1862, eight miles southwest of here, and by fall it had stores, saloons, mills, a school, perhaps five thousand people, and the seat of the new Baker County. By December 1864 the Salem paper counted no more than about 150 residents; the miners had gone on to Idaho. Chinese miners stayed and worked the tailings the boom left behind, and by 1870 they were most of eastern Oregon's miners. Nothing of Auburn stands.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center — 0.5 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 Lone Tree of the Oregon Trail — 1.1 mi
• Baker — 4.3 mi
• Cattle Drives — 12 mi
• Durkee — 20 mi