Rich Rautenstrauch/Chieftain This mine shaft is dug into the mountainside 30-40 feet deep. It used to be a great place to camp and sleep before the bars were put over it.

History happens in strange places with strange results. This is the case of a little town that was built in the northernmost part of Wallowa County at the confluence where the Imnaha River empties into the Snake River.

Eureka Bar, as it’s called today, experienced a copper rush in the early 1900s that built up this town. Its remnants are on such a strangely massive scale, leading one to wonder what happened here.

The place is named Eureka and there is no one book written exclusively about the mining town’s history. For this story three different sources were used: Grace Bartlett’s book, “From the Wallowas,” historian John Harlan Horner’s writings known as the “Horner Papers,” and Johnny Carrey’s book, “The Snake River Country,” which includes some history of Eureka Bar.

In June 1898 two stock growers named Mart Hibbs and Elmer Barton had a mining engineer stop by their blacksmith shop which was located where Horse Creek comes into the Imnaha River. The engineer saw valuable rocks on the windowsill of the shop and asked where they had come from. Hibbs said he couldn’t recollect where he had picked up the rocks. The miner told the pair if they could remember where the rock came from, they could be rich men. After the engineer left, Hibbs and Barton hurried to the mouth of the Imnaha River and staked out some claims for themselves and family members. The Wallowa County duo were now in the mining business.

These claims were bonded to the Idaho Exploration and Copper Company. With word spreading about the discovery, the claims somehow morphed and eventually ended up in the hands of the Eureka Mining, Smelting and Power Company located in Clarkston, Wash. Entrepreneurs from the Fargo Company of the Snake River also invested in the project. Two million dollars was raised and the race to the copper on the Snake River began.

The project started in earnest in 1901. It wasn’t until early 1903 that word of the scale of the operation was released to the Wallowa County Chieftain. A town site was being formed, a smelter was being built, and there were plans for a hotel, grocery store, warehouse and post office, the newspaper reported.

Interest in the Snake River mineral belt grew and a three-pronged race of sorts was underway to access the ore’s location. Railroaders started plotting branch lines from Elgin to the Snake River. Wallowa County invested in a road from Buckhorn Springs to the Eureka mine. And the mining companies Fargo and Eureka joined forces to contract the building of a steamer called the Imnaha. Experienced international river navigators who were involved were confident the Snake River could be tamed.

A sawmill was brought in to the edge of the timber above the mine. Electric drills were shipped via the railroad to Elgin and then trucked down what is now called the Cherry Creek Road. In the summer of 1903 stone was being cut for the foundations of the smelting plant and the building list. About 40 men were engaged in cutting a tunnel located between the Imnaha and Snake Rivers with promise of good ore. The population estimate from payroll accounts stood at 125 at the operation’s peak.

A smelter building 13 stories tall, a hotel, and a warehouse were built on the site.

With much delay the steamer from Lewiston was launched in the spring of 1903. It made approximately 16 successful trips to the mine. In November of that same year, however, the Snake River laid claim to the vessel while it was carrying a lot of the smelting equipment. When the steamer sank, in effect the entire mining project went with it.

Participants didn’t give in immediately, though. There was a rallying cry for a new steamer, and it was built, but the mining operation failed to recover from the earlier blow.

The timbers from the town were salvaged by locals and the U.S. Forest Service.

A poignant account of how long the town of Eureka lasted is in a tale of the local Wallowa County mail delivery man of the time named W.K. Stubblefield. He received the contract to carry the mail to the town (and the date on this is missing). However, the first time he arrived, the town was empty. Two months later there was still no one around, so mail delivery was ended.

It appears the big push for the rush for copper lasted about three years. Attributions as to why the town failed are many. Locally, people think the harsh mountainous area and the refusal of the Snake River to be tamed led to the demise. There is an account, however, of U.S. government mineral researchers coming to Wallowa County and looking for materials to be used for World War II. The researchers deemed the copper in the Snake River country to be of no use to them because of the ore’s low grade.

The building foundations remain on the banks of the Snake River. Accessing this country still proves a daunting task. A couple of unimproved roads come within about four miles of it. So anyone not taking a jet boat up the Snake should prepare for a long walk to reach the location where some hardy people long ago believed they could make it big.