John Webb was fascinated with Cornucopia from his first, brief visit.

That was almost half a century ago.

But ever since that initial glimpse of the gold mining ghost town in eastern Baker County, in 1977 when Webb was 14, he has continued to think about the place.

And especially about the prominent role Cornucopia plays, not only in Baker County’s history, but in the story of gold mining in Oregon.

“I never really forgot about the place,” Webb said. “That’s why I’m so attracted to the story.”

And now Webb, a documentary filmmaker, is ready to tell that story, of the state’s richest gold mining district and of the people who, in their pursuit of the pale yellow metal, endured avalanches and isolation and dynamite explosions and the other inherent dangers of underground mining.

“Golden Cornucopia” is in production, and Webb, who lives in McMinnville, plans to debut the roughly one-hour film with a public showing this September at the Halfway Lions Club.

His goal is to air “Golden Cornucopia” on a Friday evening in Halfway, then have another event the next night in Baker City.

Webb, the executive producer and editor, hopes to have the documentary screened at a film festival in October, and have a limited pressing of Blu-Ray discs for sale by November 2023.

Wider release, including on streaming services, is slated for early 2024.

“We’re hoping to create a buzz,” Webb said in a recent interview.

He said the documentary will include photos from private collections that have never been shown in public, including scenes from Cornucopia the town and from the mines, in the Wallowa Mountains above, that produced an estimated $20 million in gold and silver from around 1880 until the mines were closed in 1942 by federal order due to America’s entry into World War II.

The Cornucopia post office was established Dec. 7, 1885, and operated until June 1942.

Over the decades miners, as they followed the glittering veins, gouged 36 miles of shafts and tunnels into the granitic mountains that tower over the canyon of Pine Creek, where the town was built.

At peak production in the first few decades of the 20th century, the Cornucopia district was the sixth-largest gold-mining operation in the U.S., according to historical accounts, with about 700 men employed at times.

And although “Golden Cornucopia” is a story about the past, people involved with the documentary are convinced that the mountains haven’t come close to giving up all their buried riches.

“There’s still a lot of gold up there,” said Dale Taylor, a longtime Pine Valley resident who works with the Pine Valley Community Museum and provided information to Webb and his team. “I’ve been in the mine. I’ve seen the veins.”

The origin of a documentary

Webb vividly remembers the 1977 trip to Eastern Oregon with his dad, Bill.

Cornucopia wasn’t their main destination, though.

They went first to Greenhorn, where they met Miles F. Potter, who gave the Webbs a tour of that ghost town at the far western edge of Baker County.

John Webb still has the autographed copy of Potter’s history of gold mining in Blue Mountains, “Oregon’s Golden Years,” that his dad bought from the author that day.

Father and son later drove to Sumpter, where they saw the famous dredge (this was more than 15 years before the massive gold-mining machine was restored as the centerpiece of a state park), and then on to Bourne.

They didn’t get to Cornucopia — at the opposite side of Baker County, more than 90 miles from Sumpter — until late in the day. Webb said his dad was tired and eager to return to Baker City to take a room in a motel and rest.

But it was Cornucopia that made the most lasting impression on the teenager despite the brevity of his experience there.

“The vibe I got there never really left,” Webb said. “It was once a really hopping place. There’s something palpable about it even now.”

In 1977 the town, on the banks of Pine Creek about 11 miles north of Halfway, was more intact than it is today, he said.

The longtime caretaker, Chris Schneider, had died only about two years earlier.

Webb started his career in television broadcasting in 1984, and in the early 2000s he started pondering the documentary about Cornucopia that had been percolating since he was a teenager.

But it wasn’t until he met Larry Bush, in 2011, that the project, now nearing completion, became something more than an idea.

Bush, a geologist and mining engineer, was caretaker for the Cornucopia mine, which is private property.

Bush also introduced Webb to Carmelita Holland, the longtime Panhandle resident and historian who has gathered voluminous information about Baker County’s mining history. Holland also wrote a book, “Stories, Legends and Some Oregon History,” in the 1990s.

Other documentary projects occupied Webb for the next decade or so.

But in 2022 he finally started work on “Golden Cornucopia.”

The production team includes director Jared Brandon-Flande, co-producer Tom Cook, a historian and author of “Cornucopia: Oregon’s Richest Mine,” Jack Myers of Medical Springs, a local mining enthusiast who has a YouTube video series, “Ham/Homestead,” featuring mines in the area, and history buffs Jerry Ann and Trevor Dunn of Sumpter, who are associate producers.

Production started in June 2022. Webb and his crew collected video footage last summer in and around Cornucopia and recorded interviews with Holland, Bush, Taylor and other local residents who have knowledge of Cornucopia and its lustrous past, including Galen West, Bob Taylor, Kerry Gulick and Ann Ingalls.

The richest history

Although many mining districts in the Blue Mountains produced considerable quantities of gold and other precious metals, starting with Henry Griffin’s discovery of gold on Oct. 23, 1861, in a gulch a few miles southwest of what would become Baker City a few years later, no district was richer than Cornucopia.

The district includes many mines, including the Union-Companion, Last Chance, Queen of the West and Red Jacket.

Myers said that although other mines, including in the Sumpter area, cut veins that had higher gold concentrations, none was more reliably productive than the Cornucopia.

The terrain was also conducive to lode mining, Myers said, because miners could follow the veins by digging horizontally, rather than having to sink shafts hundreds of feet deep, an expensive proposition since the gold-bearing ore had to be lifted to the processing mills.

Cook, the documentary’s co-producer, said that even with its advantages, the Cornucopia mine went bankrupt four times during its history.

Rising labor costs were a challenge, he said. In 1940, the year before the U.S. entered the war, the mine didn’t make a profit.

After the mines were closed in 1942, the operations deteriorated rapidly, Cook said, as support timbers rotted.

Known for snow as well as gold

Time isn’t the only culprit, though, in the inexorable process that erases the traces of what once was a thriving community.

Cornucopia’s climate isn’t conducive to preserving structures, either. Indeed, it conspires to smash the miners’ stout but simple structures.

Few places in Northeastern Oregon can boast greater snow depths than those that accumulate most winters around Cornucopia.

Although the town’s elevation of about 4,750 feet isn’t noteworthy for the Wallowas, where more than a dozen peaks top 9,000 feet, its location is along the most common path for winter storms.

And the mines are higher, with some, including the Last Chance, above 7,000 feet.

Some of the more compelling historical photographs from Cornucopia and the surrounding area show buildings nearly buried by drifts far taller than a person.

Just this week, an automated snow-measuring station at Schneider Meadows, a couple miles southeast of Cornucopia, reported a snow depth of 93 inches. That’s more snow than any other measuring site in the Wallowas, most of which are at higher elevations.

But these prodigious snow accumulations, in addition to toppling buildings, also have posed a significant danger to people in the form of the great killer of the mountains.

Avalanches.

Snow slides have killed an unknown number of people around Cornucopia over the decades. Perhaps the worst happened on Jan. 7, 1923, when an avalanche crushed a cabin and killed three members of the Harry Fisher family — Gussie Fisher, age 30, and her two children, Garland, 9, and Jessie, 18 months.

Only the father, Harry Fisher, survived.

The cabin was about halfway between Cornucopia and the Union Companion mine, according to a handwritten account, author unknown, that was included with Stacy Burton’s donation of more than 100 photos to the Baker County Library in May 2022.

According to the written account, which Baker County historian Gary Dielman transcribed, rescuers found Harry Fisher, semiconscious, his body slumped over a wood cooking stove.

Webb said one section of “Golden Cornucopia” is dedicated to the story of the 1923 avalanche.

But that was not the only deadly, or damaging, snow slide, Cook said.

An earlier avalanche near the Union mine killed the mine’s manager, he said.

A newspaper story from July 1938 states that an avalanche the previous winter destroyed the mill at the Queen of the West mine, several miles north of Cornucopia along Pine Creek.

“I don’t think any of those mines escaped avalanches,” Myers said.

The terrain is treacherous even when it’s snow-free — a relatively short period for the higher elevations, where drifts often linger far into summer.

The road to the Last Chance mine, for instance, was infamous for its steep grades and nearly sheer dropoffs.

“I can’t imagine taking a horse and wagon across that,” Myers said.

The road was also known for the massive Douglas-fir tree that grew on its edge, a tree that Webb said once was featured in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”

Myers said the tree was alive when he rode a four-wheeler up the road about 17 years ago, but during a more recent visit the tree, which had split in half, was dead.

The dangers, though, weren’t limited to snow slides and precariously perched roads.

Both the Queen of the West and Last Chance mines used trams, attached to cables hundreds of feet above the ground, to transport from the mines to the mills.

But not only ore.

Miners, too, as many photos prove, also took those treacherous rides.

People are the true treasure

Although tales of riding trams, and mine ledger books showing the huge sums of gold and dollars, are integral to the history, ultimately, Webb said, “Golden Cornucopia” is a story about people.

The miners who ventured so deep into the mountains, far beyond where any natural light could penetrate.

The families who endured the harsh conditions and the isolation and the dangers.

Cook said many people with personal knowledge of Cornucopia, including Dale Holcomb, the longest surviving miner, gave “wonderful interviews” to Webb and his team.

“They’re the treasure — the stories,” Cook said. “That’s the treasure of Copia.”

“I never really forget about the place. The vibe I got there never really left. That’s why I’m so attracted to the story. It was a really hopping place. There’s something palpable about it even now.”

— John Webb, producer, “Golden Cornucopia”

“Once a hub of industry and prosperity, the town of Cornucopia is slowly fading into history. Its mines and memories are the only remaining testament to the ingenuity, resilience, and self-reliance of the people who once called this place home.”

“Despite the dangers of mining, avalanches, industrial mishaps, and premature dynamite explosions, the community persevered, drawn together by a shared sense of purpose and the promise of gold.”