Editing Sumpter, Oregon (section)

== History ==
The community was [[plat]]ted in 1889, and became a mining [[boomtown|boom town]] about 10 years later.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bailey|first=Barbara Ruth|title=Main Street: Northeastern Oregon|publisher=[[Oregon Historical Society]]|year=1982|isbn=0-87595-073-6|page=45}}</ref> Until transportation by rail became feasible in the area, Sumpter was little more than "a huddle of crude log cabins."<ref name="Friedman">{{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Ralph|title=Oregon for the Curious|publisher=The Caxton Printers|location=Caldwell, Idaho|year=1982|edition=3rd revised|page=[https://archive.org/details/oregonforcurious00frie/page/202 202]|isbn=0-87004-222-X|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/oregonforcurious00frie/page/202}}</ref>

A [[narrow-gauge railway]] reached Sumpter in 1897. Built by [[David Eccles (businessman)|David C. Eccles]], the [[Sumpter Valley Railway]] (SVRy) ran {{convert|80|mi|km}} from [[Baker City, Oregon|Baker City]] through Sumpter and on to [[Prairie City, Oregon|Prairie City]], which it reached in 1907. Until the line shut down in the 1930s, ranchers, mining interests, and timber companies used it to move freight.<ref name="Culp">{{cite book|last=Culp|first=Edwin D.|title=Stations West: The Story of the Oregon Railways|publisher=Bonanza Books|year=1978|location=New York|pages=91&ndash;95|isbn=0-517-243431}}</ref>

Shortly after the SVRy arrived, the city expanded near a set of deep-shaft gold mines with a combined total of {{convert|12|mi|km}} of tunnels.<ref name="Friedman"/> The population grew to more than 2,000.<ref name="Moffatt"/> Sumpter had electric lights, churches, saloons, a brewery, sidewalks, three newspapers, and an opera house. However, as the mines played out, the city declined even before a devastating fire in 1917.<ref name="Friedman"/>

Dynamite was used to help put out the fire, which destroyed 12 blocks of the town's buildings. A few of the surviving structures remain in the 21st&nbsp;century and are occupied by retail shops.<ref name="Ostertag">{{cite book|title=Backroads of Oregon|last=Ostertag|first=Rhonda|author2=George Ostertag|publisher=Voyageur Press|location=Stillwater, Minnesota|year=2004|pages=116&ndash;17|isbn=0-89658-081-4}}</ref>