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Inventory Form
NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address: 2nd St historic name:Cornucopia Jailhouse
Cornucopia, Baker County current/other names:
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:6S4 5E 27
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):2.0 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:c.1885 second date: date indiv listed:11/24/2014
primary orig use: Correctional Institute orig use comments:Jail
second orig use: Work in Progress
primary style: Vernacular prim style comments:
secondary style: Other / Undefined sec style comments:
primary siding: Horizontal Board siding comments:
secondary siding: Vertical Board
plan type: architect:Unknown
builder:Unknown
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Not associated with any surveys or groupings.
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 11/24/2014
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date: 11/15/2010
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The circa 1885 Cornucopia Jailhouse is located in the center of the Second Street right-of-way in the unincorporated former mining town of Cornucopia, Baker County, Oregon, 65 miles northeast of Baker City within the Wallowa Mountain range. (Figures 1-3, Regional and local location maps and Baker County tax lot map). The Jailhouse is a simple, utilitarian, two-story rectangular 20’x12’ building set on poured-concrete footings and constructed of wood cribbing and rough-sawn framing clad in board-and-batten siding with a steeply-pitched front-gabled corrugated-steel roof. Fenestration is minimal, with two narrow, rectangular openings with evenly-spaced metal bars, set in the center of the north and south walls of the first floor, and two paired wood windows located on the east wall of the second floor. A single unadorned wood-plank door is located at the southwest corner. The first-floor interior consists of four small rooms: a small entry foyer at the west end with stairs to the second floor, a small room in the middle, and two identical jail cells located at the east end. The stairs on the opposite (west) end of the building lead to a second floor office containing a closet on the west side of the room. Interior finishes are minimal. Walls are clad in vertical or horizontal board, and evidence of wallpaper is present on the second floor. Non-historic alterations include the removal of the original, centered brick chimney; covering of the second floor window; installation of bracing on the exterior walls; addition of interior modern steel cables to stabilize the building; some limited replacement of flooring; and a poured-concrete foundation.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The c.1885 Cornucopia Jailhouse is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, Government, for its association with local self-governance and the maintenance of law-and-order in the former mining town of Cornucopia, Baker Co. In the early 1860s, prospectors discovered gold in the vicinity of present-day Baker City, and soon prospectors fanned out across the region. As miners traveled upslope from the Pine Valley, northeast of Baker City, the communities of Allentown, and a later sister community, Cornucopia, were hastily built to accommodate the over 1,000 miners that flocked to the area by 1884. Based on an examination of the building and oral tradition, local residents and historians believe that the Jailhouse was built in Allentown to meet the community’s need to establish and maintain general law-and-order, and then was later moved to the Cornucopia town site in 1889 as mining activity moved upslope closer to the most productive mines. While Cornucopia was not as notoriously lawless as many other frontier communities, the Jailhouse was an important institution that fostered stability in a town with numerous saloons and bordellos, and served as a temporary holding place for disorderly citizens and criminals awaiting trial. The period of significance ends in 1942 when the local Post Office closed, shortly after the mines ceased operation in 1941 in response to War Production Board order L-208, which diverted resources to mines producing metals for the war effort during the Second World War. The Jailhouse meets the requirements of Criteria Consideration B for moved properties because the property was moved during the selected historic period. As the last remaining public building in one of Baker County’s most significant mining communities, the Jailhouse is the key resource representing the history and governance of this former mining community.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:Eastern Oregon University
Historical Society:Baker County Historical Society Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Bibliographical Note: In the forward to his 1893 history of Baker County, author Isaac Hiatt noted the difficulty of assembling the records of Baker County and its towns and communities, stating “in the present work, accounts of events and dates of their occurrence have been taken from written documents whenever they could be obtained, and in other cases where no record could be consulted, conclusion had to be reached by summing up the testimony on the best witnesses to the fact.” Assembling the facts of the establishment of Allentown and Cornucopia and the construction of the Cornucopia Jailhouse 121 years after Hiatt made his observation is no easier. The history of these towns is that of the mines, and while primary source information related to the establishment, operation, and output of the mines are captured in corporate records and government reports, the history of the towns themselves is largely lost – either mislaid, destroyed, or never recorded. A number of secondary resources do address the history of Cornucopia, but the unsourced narratives are often based on secondary oral histories, and are often incomplete or contradictory. The discussion presented here broadly uses a variety of resources to construct the most plausible narrative. Where possible, primary and secondary resources are used in concert to establish important facts, and, as necessary, contradictory information is identified. Baker County Historical Society. The History of Baker County, Oregon. Baker City: Baker County Historical Society, 1986. Barr, W.B. “Government Land Office Survey Map, Township Lines and Subdivisions, Township 6 South, Range 45 East, Willamette Meridian.” Washington D.C.: United States Bureau of Land Management, 13 March 1883. Brooks, Howard. A Pictorial History of Gold Mining in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon, 2nd ed. Baker City: Baker County Historical Society, 2012. Burch, Albert. “The Development of Metal Mining in Oregon.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 43, no 2. (June 1941). Curtis, Kent A. Gambling on Ore: The Nature of Metal Mining in the United States, 1860-1910. Boulder, Co. University Press of Colorado, 2013. Dielman, Elois,e ed. Baker County Links to the Past. Baker County, Oregon: Baker County Historical Society, 1998. Dixon, Max M. “Geological Processes Represented in the Cornucopia Mining District, Cornucopia, OR.” M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, New York City, 1922. Dodds, Gordon B. Oregon: A History. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1977. Duffy McLaughlin, Virginia. “Cynthia Stafford and the Lost Mining Town of Auburn.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 98, No. 1, Aspects of Eastern Oregon History (Spring 1997. Dunbar, Alexander R. American Mining Manual. Chicago: The Mining Manual Co., 1920. Epling, Jim M. “The Cornucopia Gold Mine of N. E. Oregon, 1965.” TMs. Pierce Library, Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, OR. Evans, James R. Gold Dust and Caulk Dust, 2nd ed., edited by Eloise Dielman. Baker City: Baker County Historical Society, 2007. Florin, Lambert. Oregon Ghost Towns. Seattle, WA: Superior Publishing Company, 1970. Guy, Marden, Margaret Durner, and Karen Riener. “Boulder Beetle Heritage Analysis Area.” Halfway, OR: United States Forest Service, Wallowa Whitman National Forest, Pine Ranger District, November 2001. Photocopied. Hiatt, Isaac. Thirty – one Years in Baker County: History of the County from 1861-1893, edited by Eloise Dielman. Baker County, Oregon,1893. Holland, Carmelita. Stories, Legends, and Some Oregon History. Oregon, by the author, 1996. Nudo, LaVada. “Panter Assessment Area – 1990, Evaluation of Past Surveys/Recent Survey for the Planter Timber Sale.” Baker City: United States Forest Service, Wallowa Whitman National Forest, 1990. Photocopied. Holland, Carmelita. Stories, Legends, and Some Oregon History. Oregon, by the author, 1996. Huff, Brady, private building contractor. personal communication with author, January 2014 Hug, Bernal D. The History of Union County, OR. La Grande, OR: Eastern Oregon Review, 1961. Oregon Bureau of Mines and Geology. “The Mineral Resources of Oregon” December 1916, v. 2 no. 4. Corvallis: State of Oregon, Oregon Bureau of Mines and Geology. Potter, Miles F. Oregon’s Golden Years. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, 1995. Rice, John and Richard Reay, Jessica Mason, and Dorothy Mason, “Cornucopia Mining District Record Search, Passport in Time.” Baker City: United States Forest Service, Wallowa- Whitman National Forest, Pine Ranger District, 2001. Rohe, Randall. “The Geography and Material Culture of the Western Mining Town.” Material Culture, 16, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 99-120. Smith, Duane “The Golden West: Facts behind the façade of 115 Years of Mining.” Montana the Magazine of Western History (Summer 1964) . State of Oregon. Oregon Blue Book. Salem: State of Oregon, various years. Taylor, Dale. Personal communication with author, 2013. Trimble, William J. The Mining Advance into The Inland Empire. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1914. United States of America. United States Manuscript Census. Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, various years.