A piece of Baker County’s, and Oregon’s, lumber industry history will soon belong to Baker County.

A very large, and unusual, piece.

County commissioners voted 3-0 on Wednesday morning, March 19, to buy a 5.4-acre parcel about a mile south of Halfway that includes a metal wigwam burner.

The structures, which were used for decades to burn waste wood from lumber mills, were once common across Oregon, but few remain standing.

Wigwam burners, which with a bit of creative thinking can be said to resemble a badminton shuttlecock, were shut down in the 1970s and 1980s because they ran afoul of clean air laws.

The county is paying $270,000 for the property. The commissioners’ goal is to create a day-use park with interpretive signs about the burner and the county’s logging history.

Commission chairman Shane Alderson and commissioners Christina Witham and Michelle Kaseberg all said they voted to buy the property because the county had money available from a $6.5 million federal allotment it received during the pandemic. The county also used $1.45 million in federal aid to buy a 70-acre property, just south of Hughes Lane between the Powder River and the Baker Sports Complex, in December 2022. County officials hope to build a multipurpose event center on the land, although that is a proposal only.

“If we didn’t have that money set aside we wouldn’t do it,” Witham said after the commissioners’ meeting.

Witham said the county has information showing that Ellingson Lumber Company bought the mill, including the burner, in 1959. Prior to that the mill was owned and run by the Stil-Pen Lumber Company, owned by John Pengilly and Marion Stilwell.

The county is buying the property from George and Lynette Hauptman. The parcel has a market value of $43,000, according to the Baker County Assessor’s Office.

Commissioners said the main value of the property is the wigwam burner, which they believe will attract visitors to eastern Baker County.

Kaseberg said she supported the purchase because she believes the burner has “historic value.”

Alderson agreed.

“I’m really happy about it,” he said. “Once they’re gone (wigwam burners) you’ll only have photographs.”

Witham said she’s glad the county could preserve a piece of history that she believes is important to many residents in the Pine and Eagle valleys.

Alderson said Halfway Mayor Nora Aspy asked the city a year or so ago about the possibility of the county buying the property to preserve the wigwam burner, as the small city didn’t have money to do so.

Neither did the county at the time, Alderson said, because a larger parcel, including the burner, was for sale.

But he said the owners divided the property into parcels, which reduced the price for the lot that includes the burner.

The 5.4-acre parcel is contiguous to, and just north of, a property the county has owned for many years near the intersection of Highway 86 and Sawmill Cutoff Lane.

The current county property has a kiosk with information about the Hells Canyon Scenic Byway and other local attractions.

Alderson, who grew up in Baker City, said he remembers looking at the wigwam burner near his home, on a former mill site in south Baker City near David Eccles Road. That burner was torn down.

Alderson said he hopes the county will apply for grants, including from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, to develop the park around the wigwam burner.

Alderson said he doesn’t think this property carries any additional potential liabilities compared to other county parks properties, such as Hewitt and Holcomb parks on Brownlee Reservoir near Richland.

“Not any more than having a boat dock,” he said.

He said visitors would not be allowed to go into the structure.

Halfway mayor excited about purchase

Halfway Mayor Nora Aspy, who told commissioners a couple weeks ago that the property with the burner was for sale, said she is “grateful and excited” that commissioners decided to buy the property.

“I think that if there is a chance for these historical sites to be maintained and preserved, I’m all for it,” Aspy said. “I’m really happy that I was able to bring that to the table for (commissioners).”

Aspy said she and other Halfway officials were worried that someone would buy the property and dismantle the burner.

“That would be a huge loss for us,” she said.

Aspy called the burner an “icon” of the Pine Valley, something she and others always were happy to see as they descended the Highway 86 grade into the Pine Valley.

“One of those welcome home signals,” she said. “For us it’s just a symbol of the pioneer spirit that Halfway has always had. It’s been there for decades and it’s still standing strong.”

Aspy said she believes the burner is already a tourist attraction. She has worked as a server at two Halfway restaurants, and she said customers sometimes asked her about the strange-looking structure just south of town.

The county’s plan to create a day-use park, with information about the burner, has the potential to make the structure a bigger attraction for tourists, Aspy said.