Baker City mourns Peter Ellingson, civic leader behind Sam-O Swim Center

Baker City’s flags will fly at half-staff through Wednesday, May 20, 2026, for Peter Ellingson, the former councilor and mayor whose most visible civic legacy may be the Sam-O Swim Center. Ellingson died Sunday, May 10, at age 78 at his winter home in Florida, and in Baker City his death is being marked not just as the loss of a public official, but as the passing of a man whose work still shapes one of the city’s most-used recreation sites.

Ellingson’s name is tied most closely to the pool on the Sam-O Springs property in east Baker. The facility opened June 18, 1983, originally as the Baker Community Pool, and city park information says the Sam-O Swim Center was constructed in 1985 with support from city taxpayers and generous Baker County-area citizens. The city owns the building, while the Baker County Family YMCA operates and staffs it. Set on the east end of Baker Street, the site covers about 3.34 acres and includes the swim center, a skate park, a gazebo, green space and a basketball court that can convert to an ice rink.

That public footprint is why Ellingson’s influence reaches beyond the offices he held. Chuck Hofmann, Ellingson’s friend and fellow former councilor and mayor, said the pool was essentially Peter’s project. For a small city, that kind of persistence can matter for decades, because a single facility becomes part of daily life, youth programs and summer routines long after the politics behind it have faded.

Ellingson also remained part of Baker City’s civic debates well after the pool opened. Baker City Herald archives show him on the council in the 2000s and 2010s, including a 2005 vote supporting a conference-center proposal alongside Mayor Charles Hofmann, Randy Daugherty and Jeff Petry. He later received write-in votes in the 2010 city-council election, a sign that even out of office he remained a recognizable figure in local government.

By 2003, the Baker City Herald was already marking the pool’s 20th anniversary, a reminder that the project had become embedded in the city’s identity early on. Ellingson’s death closes a chapter in Baker City politics, but the pool, and the public space around it, keeps his imprint in view.