Burns

History

Archeologists have found evidence of human habitation in the general vicinity of Burns that pushed the possibility of human habitation from the previous estimate of 10,000 to 18,000 years ago. Members of the contemporary Burns Paiute Tribe of Harney County, descended mainly from the Wadatika band of Paiutes, were hunter-gatherers throughout central and southern Oregon. The Wadatikas were named after the wada seeds collected as food from near Malheur Lake. Their territory covered about from the Cascade Range to near Boise and from the southern Blue Mountains to south of Steens Mountain. Scattered in the 19th century by clashes with white settlers and soldiers and through forced removal to distant reservations, some of the Paiutes eventually returned to Harney County. In the 1930s, the Burns Paiute Tribe began buying land near Burns and holding tribal elections. By the late 1960s, the tribe had adopted a constitution and tribal bylaws, and in 1972 the Burns Paiute formally became an independent tribe, eligible to enter into contracts with other governments and legal entities. The tribe owns the Burns Paiute Reservation, north of Burns, and individual members of the tribe own more than of land elsewhere in the county. In 1991, the tribe had about 350 members, and about 200 lived on the reservation. After the arrival of Euro-American settlers in the 19th century, Burns was established in the 1880s. It was formally incorporated after Harney County's creation in 1889 through the splitting of Grant County into two counties. Early settler, merchant, and county commissioner George McGowan named the city after the Scottish poet Robert Burns. By 1891, the community had stores, a post office, hotels, and other businesses. McGowan was the town's first postmaster.…

Geography

Harney County is the largest county in Oregon and the tenth largest in the United States. It covers about but has a total population of only about 7,600. Most of that population lives in Burns or Hines, about southwest of Burns. Burns had about 2,800 residents in 2010 and Hines about 1,600, Burns is in southeastern Oregon near the northern edge of the arid Harney Basin. The basin is part of the High Lava Plains, a region dominated by erupting volcanoes in the late Miocene, five to ten million years ago. Centered on the Brothers Fault Zone, which runs southeast–northwest between Steens Mountain and Bend, the High Lava Plains merge with the Blue Mountains to the north and the Basin and Range Province to the south. Shallow basins formed by crustal stretching in the Basin and Range province were much wetter during the late Pleistocene, up to 11,000 years ago, than they are in the 21st century. Lakes formed in these basins, including those in the southern part of the High Lava Plains. Among these, the largest depression was the Harney Basin, covering . Within the Harney Basin, ancient Malheur Lake—the 21st-century remnants of which include Malheur Lake, Harney Lake, and Mud Lake—covered and extended as far north as Burns. These remnant wetlands have become the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Burns has a semi-arid continental climate (Köppen BSk) bordering upon a continental Mediterranean climate (Dsb) that averages 99 days with precipitation each year. Cloud cover varies from an average of 25 percent in July to 76 percent in January. Normal annual precipitation amounts to about , including of snow. During another top-10 event, which occurred in February 1933, the temperature at Seneca reached , the lowest ever recorded in Oregon. At Burns itself, record…

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• Henry L Slater Elementary School
  Elementary · Burns · 352 students · 15.3:1 ratio
• Burns High School
  High · Burns · 219 students · 12.9:1 ratio
• Hines Middle School
  Middle · Hines · 164 students · 14.9:1 ratio
• Monroe School
  High · Burns · 12 students · 6:1 ratio
• Burns High Desert Academy
  Other · Burns · 7 students