Home › Oregon › Wheeler County

Wheeler County, Oregon

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

2historic places

—earliest paper

1899formed

1,451pop. 2020

13cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 2 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1978. Most listings are in or near Fossil.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Oregon is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Wheeler titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

2 of 2 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

2 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Fossil Public School	Fossil	Building	2013
Hoover, Thomas Benton, House	Fossil	Building	1978

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Wheeler was formed in 1899 (1899-02-17) from Crook, Gilliam, Grant.

WHEELER created from CROOK, GILLIAM, and GRANT.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Wheeler County population from 1900 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
2,443	2,791	2,974	3,313	2,722	1,513	1,547	1,451

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument	Park unit	12.1 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

13 cemeteries and 6 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 13 of 13 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Caleb Cemetery	44.52349	-119.93957
Camp Watson Cemetery	44.48444	-119.89945
Fossil IOOF Cemetery	44.99235	-120.21362
Haystack Cemetery	44.87986	-119.73638
Lower Mitchell Cemetery	44.56993	-120.16528
Mary Waterman Grave	44.4723	-119.81158
Masonic Cemetery	45.00684	-120.20729
Mitchell Cemetery	44.56475	-120.14317
Richmond Cemetery	44.72925	-120.01207
Spanish Gulch Cemetery	44.46623	-119.77297
Spray Cemetery	44.83006	-119.8113
West Branch Cemetery	44.53402	-120.30917
Winlock Cemetery	44.91162	-119.89952

Historical populated places — 6 of 6

Name	Lat	Lon
Antone	44.47153	-119.80999
Caleb	44.52347	-119.91222
Kinzua	44.98958	-120.05891
Lost Valley	45.05624	-119.99974
Waldron	44.7243	-120.02862
Waterman	44.61931	-119.89028

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Wheeler County, Oregon

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.