Oregon Geographic Names Board Removes Sumpter-area Cracker Creeks From Review

The Oregon Geographic Names Board removed two Sumpter-area streams - Cracker Creek and Little Cracker Creek - from a 2025 list of place names being reviewed for possible change, the board’s March 4–5, 2026 action shows.

The move narrows Baker County’s presence on a statewide campaign that in September 2025 identified 91 places for review; a Baker City Herald article by Jayson Jacoby listed three Baker County entries on that list: Cracker Creek, Little Cracker Creek and Papoose Creek. The September 24, 2025 story said the state board had not yet decided which names to send to its federal counterpart.

The original report on the March action included an incomplete sentence: “The decision followed Baker County commissioners and Sumpt” — that fragment remains truncated in the available record and requires clarification about what, specifically, the county commissioners or Sumpter officials did or submitted prior to the board’s vote.

The state board’s standard for removing names from review is explicit in earlier coverage: the board “could delete names from the list if someone shows documented historical evidence that the origin of a place name was not the offensive connotation,” and the Baker City Herald cited an example in which a local “Coon” place name was actually a misspelling of the Kuhn family name. As the paper reported Fisher saying about Cracker, “In the case of Cracker, if there were convincing evidence that the creeks were named for the snack food, Fisher said it’s possible the state board wouldn’t recommend the two streams be renamed.”

Cracker Creek’s local geography ties the name to Sumpter’s mining landscape. Jacoby described Cracker Creek as a “major tributary of the Powder River” that “flows through the west side of Sumpter and joins McCully Fork in the tailing piles in Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area. Where the two streams meet is the headwaters of the Powder River.” A Baker City Herald note also recorded that “He noted that among the tributaries of Cracker Creek are two with likely food-related origins - Sardine Gulch and Fruit Creek.”

Historic mining filings add further local context. A February 15, 2021 Cracker Creek Property report fragment states, “However, due to cash flow problems, AMAX withdrew from the project in October 1982 removing all equipment and facilities.” The same technical fragment reports the property is about 30 km west of Baker City and 9 km north of Sumpter, and that “The Jevne adit is the only historical adit which remains accessible. The Jevne adit is located at UTM 404922E/4963743N at an elevation 1,600 m (5,250 ft). Historically it was designed to be the main haulageway. It is 2.4 m by 3 m (8 ft by 10” — that dimension is truncated in the available text. The report also notes that core is stored in dry storage in Baker City and that some historical infrastructure remains and may carry potential environmental liabilities.

Regionally, the 2025 list included entries in neighboring counties such as Wallowa, Union, Umatilla and Grant, with names ranging from Coon Creek and Papoose Lake to Negro Gulch and Oriental Basin. As of the March 4–5, 2026 action, Cracker Creek and Little Cracker Creek are off the state review list while Papoose Creek remains among the Baker County entries identified in the September 24, 2025 coverage. Official OGNB meeting minutes and any documentary submissions from Baker County or Sumpter will be needed to record the board’s vote count and rationale.