Harney County Juvenile Dept.
450 N. Buena Vista
Burns, OR 97720

www.co.harney.or.us

• The discovery of gold in eastern Oregon in the early 1860s brought thousands of prospectors through the area, and their presence soon led to violent skirmishes with the Northwest Indians.
• To restore peace, the federal government established several military camps in the present-day Harney County before negotiating a treaty in 1869. Cattle ranchers, attracted by the vast amount of bunchgrass and the railroad available at Winnemucca, soon began moving their herds into the region.

• While small, family-owned farms grew on the northern sections of the county, several vast cattle ranches, financed by out-of-state owners, developed on the southern end.
• For the next several decades, an uneasiness that sometimes erupted in violence brewed between the settlers and the cattle barons as each jockeyed for land ownership and water rights.