Sumpter, OR

Sumpter is a city in Baker County, Oregon, United States. The 2020 census counted 204 residents. Sumpter is named after Fort Sumter by its founders. The name was inspired by a rock as smooth and round as a cannonball, which reminded a local resident of the American Civil War and Fort Sumter. Sumpter's local map joins its older history to the places and landscapes that still shape the town today, all within the wider Oregon setting. The local scoop is how Sumpter's history still shows up in the places people visit, work, learn, and meet. The community was platted in 1889, and became a mining boom town about 10 years later. A narrow-gauge railway reached Sumpter in 1897. Sumpter, about 4,400 feet above sea level, is near the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest, the Blue Mountains, and a subrange of the Blue Mountains, the Elkhorn Mountains.