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If you're looking to get away from it all -- you've found the right place!
Fields is in Harney County, 112 miles south of Burns in the Oregon High Desert, and a long, long way from anywhere else. Fields might not be at the end of the world, but some say you can see it from here.
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The Steens Mountain - USDI BLM
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Fields Station was first established as a roadhouse on the stagecoach line between Winnemucca, Nevada and Burns, Oregon in 1881.
Charles Fields homesteaded at the site of the Fields post office and "kept the travel and freight haulers." In 1911 he sold out to John Smyth and when the post office was established in 1913, Smyth named it for Fields. The old stone roadhouse still stands, remodeled as a store and restaurant. The stone horse barn is still in use, although it has partly collapsed. The stationmaster's tiny cabin with walls of sawed stone and a sod roof, long unused, reminds the passerby of pioneer times.
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Fields now consists of a store, cafe, gas station, camp ground, hotel, post office and school, and a few houses. The Fields Station cafe is the main attraction, known far and wide for their famous hamburgers and milkshakes-- made the old fashioned way!
The Fields school was established about 1900. It began with one room and one teacher. |
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| Fields Station - 2003, Chris Hodges | |||
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In later years a new wing was added to the school; now there are two rooms, and two teachers for the kindergarten through eighth grade students.
There are numerous hot springs in the area, including Bog Hot Springs, White Horse Hot Springs, and Alvord Hot Springs, all of which are open to the public.
Fields is a ranching community. It has never been easy to make a living ranching, but some ranches here have been in the same family for generations. Other ranches are corporate-owned and are operated by managers who live on the ranch. The oldest ranch in the area is the historic Whitehorse Ranch, established in 1869. Whitehorse is a large ranch with about three or four buckaroos and seven or eight farm hands in the busy time of the year. Average rainfall is less than ten inches a year, classifying this land as a high desert range.
The borax industry operated in the Fields area many years ago. Hot springs in and near Borax Lake contain about 80 parts per million borate. When the spring water flows onto the surrounding desert and evaporates, it leaves a thick white surface of alkali. From about 1892-1902, the Rose Valley Borax Company hired Chinese workers to collect the salt crust into small piles during the summer. The salts were dissolved in large vats (about 6,000 to 8,000 gallons) by boiling them with water and acid. Sagebrush was used to fire the dissolving tanks. When it was cooled, crystallized borax was collected, sacked and shipped by mule team 130 miles to the Central Pacific Railroad in Winnemucca. About 400 tons of borax was shipped each year. Now you can still see the rusted tanks where they processed borax near Borax Lake.
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Steens Mountain is located approximately 60 miles southeast of Burns, Oregon and 52 miles north of Fields. This fault-block range offers a diversity of natural systems that are unique to the northern Great Basin region. From the valley floor of the Alvord Desert at 4,200 feet elevation, to the east rim of the fault-block at 9,700 feet elevation, Steens Mountain rises 5,500 feet in less than 3 miles. The mountain is |
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Alvord Desert - USDI BLM
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approximately 60 miles in length, extending from Riddle Mountain on the north to Alvord Peak and Long Hollow on the south. Its width is approximately 40 miles from the Alvord Desert on the east, across the fault-block to the Blitzen and Catlow Valleys on the west. Steens Mountain offers exceptional ecologic and geologic diversity. The mountain provides visitors with spectacular views of deep, glacial gorges; stunning colorful alpine wildflower meadows; high desert communities; and the opportunity to see pronghorn antelope, elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep and raptors. The 52-mile Steens Mountain Backcountry Byway offers access to four campgrounds on the mountain and affords remarkable views of Kiger Gorge, the east rim and Wildhorse overlooks. These spectacular views are enjoyed by many visitors each year.
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For Reservations & Information Call 541-589-0575 |
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