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Baker City, OR
Baker City is a city in and the county seat of Baker County, Oregon, United States. The population was 10,099 at the time of the 2020 census. It was named after Edward Dickinson Baker, the only U.S. Senator ever killed in military combat. He died in 1861 while leading a charge of 1,700 Union Army soldiers up a ridge at Ball's Bluff, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Platted in 1865, Baker City grew slowly in the beginning. A post office was established on March 27, 1866, but Baker City was not incorporated until 1874. The Oregon Short Line Railroad came to Baker City in 1884, prompting growth; by 1900 it was the largest city between Salt Lake City and Portland and a trading center for a broad region.
The city is the headquarters for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Baker City has developed dairy, lumber, and tourist industries and is a trading point for cattle and mining interests. The Baker Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on about 42 acres centered on Main Street in downtown Baker City. Within its boundaries are more than 130 properties, about half of which include structures built between the late 1880s and about 1915. Many of these as well as others built as early as 1870 are two-story masonry commercial buildings. The city hall, county courthouse, the former post office, former library, former social clubs, a Roman Catholic cathedral, and an Episcopal Church are among notable buildings within the district.
The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of the city, offers exhibits, theater performances, workshops, and other events and activities related to the Oregon Trail, the ruts of which pass through the center's 500-acre site.
