The Wallowa RecordEnterprise, Oregon · Updated 19 October 2026
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Joseph, working fields and Wallowa Lake below the mountains
Wallowa County · An open conversation

Home,
twenty years from now.

What should change by 2046, and what do you hope will still be here? This page gathers what the county has said about its own future since a 2006 vision statement. Beside it sits what the state has measured and forecast, up to its 2023 population forecast. It ends with the questions those documents leave open, and asks for your answer.

Updated 19 October 2026 · 59 sources

Begin with the story ↓
Sam Beebe · 2007-07-08 · CC BY 2.0 · Image & source ↗A documentary photograph, not a visualization of the future.

Twenty years back, twenty years forward

In 2006 the county wrote down the place it wanted to be. The vision statement was led by faculty from North Carolina State University and guided by the Wallowa County Economic Action Team. It asked for “wide-open spaces and intact ranchlands” and for ways to “carry agriculture and ranching forward into the next generation.” It wanted a place that would “nurture and connect year-round residents, including young people and families,” and “a County with no mega anything” 1. In 2010 Oregon State University used that statement, and four community forums held in 2008, as the frame for 26 measures of how the county was doing. Its first reading, as of 2009, was that the county was “roughly three-quarters vital, with some clear work to do” 1. In every decade from the 1950s to the 1990s, more people aged 15 to 24 left the county than moved in 1. In 2007 the average job paid $25,523 a year. That covered 101% of what one parent with one child needed to live on, and 74% of what two parents with one child needed 1. The county bought $250 million from outside that year and sold $165 million out 1. In the 2009 survey, 91% of adults thought people here were willing to help their neighbors. Just over half, 55%, thought local government could deal effectively with important problems 1.

The census counted 7,226 people in 2000, 7,008 in 2010 and 7,391 in 2020 6. In 2000, 19% of residents were 65 or older. In 2020 it was 29%, against 18% statewide 5.

People

About the same number of people for sixty-five years

Census counts since 1960 and the state’s official forecast to 2045.

The county has stayed between about 6,200 and 7,400 people since 1960. The forecast assumes 36 more people a year move in than move out from 2026, and expects deaths to outnumber births three to one by 2040. The forecast figures are the sum of its age table.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, 1973 (data as of April 1, 1970 and 1960); U.S. Census Bureau, 2012; U.S. Census Bureau, April 1 counts, 2000, 2010, 2020; Population Research Center, Portland State University, for the Oregon Population Forecast Program (Marquez, Sharygin, Loftus, Alkitkat, Montcho, Swanson and Wilde, 2023), June 25, 2023

The numbers as a table
People
19607,102
19706,247
19807,273
19906,911
20007,226
20107,008
20207,391
2025 (forecast)7,406
2035 (forecast)7,184
2045 (forecast)6,717

Housing comes up in every later document. The county’s 2021 economic analysis found that “the need for housing cuts across all discernable socio-economic lines” 2. A needs assessment of the three northeast counties the same year called workforce housing “the biggest concern for interviewees.” Broadband came second 3. Of the 86 county residents who answered a foundation survey in 2021, 5% agreed that affordable housing was available where they live 4. The census estimates for 2020 to 2024 count 4,349 homes in the county, 962 of them vacant. Of the vacant ones, 630 were being kept for seasonal or recreational use 7. The median, or middle, value of an owner-occupied home was $394,800, and the median household income was $67,112 7. One divided by the other is about 5.9: a home worth almost six years of a household’s income.

Jobs grew. The state counts the jobs covered by unemployment insurance, which is most paid jobs but not self-employment. That count rose from 2,495 in 2015 to 2,855 in 2025 10, 9. Average pay rose from $32,237 to $55,379 over the same years, before any adjustment for inflation 10, 9. Government jobs went from 648 to 789 10, 9. Retail, the one sector reported in every year, went from 257 jobs to 288, across a change in how jobs are classified 10, 9. Within the private sector in 2025, the largest industry the state would disclose was outpatient health care, with 219 jobs 9. The 2021 analysis measured transfer payments two ways. Transfer payments are the money residents receive from programs such as Social Security and Medicare rather than from work. One method gave 29% of 2018 personal income and the other 45%, and the analysis could not reconcile them 2. In the year to July 2026, “Wallowa County had the largest job loss over the year, falling by 8.3%” 11.

School enrollment has held. The county’s 2021 analysis counted 872 students across the four districts in 2009–10 2. The state’s own October counts, adding the four districts together, give 857 students in 2015 and 878 in 2025 8. The total hides a shift between towns: Wallowa’s district went from 253 students to 199, and Joseph’s from 215 to 249 2, 8. Over fifty years the change is larger. In 1970 the census, counting from a sample, found 6,247 people in the county and 1,645 of them in kindergarten through high school. Of those, 1,604 were in public schools 56. In October 2025 the four districts enrolled 878 students among roughly 7,400 people 56. Land was protected. In January 2020, 1,791 acres of the East Moraine, the ridge above Wallowa Lake, passed into county ownership after almost $6.5 million was raised 12. An easement signed in January 2023 made the protection permanent. An easement is a legal promise attached to the land that keeps it from being developed 13. The hospital’s 2025 assessment found that 28.9% of residents were aged 65 or older, and that 55.7% had left the county for medical care in the past year 14. In 2019, 17% of children under six had access to a regulated child care slot, against 23% statewide 15.

Schools

One resident in four was in school in 1970. One in eight is now.

The 1970 figure is a census sample count of residents enrolled anywhere; the 2025 figure is the four districts’ October enrollment. The two are not identical measures, but the gap is far larger than that difference. Dividing students by residents gives the ratio.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1973 (data as of April 1, 1970); Oregon Department of Education, October 2025 count; file posted February 12, 2026; Population Research Center, Portland State University, for the Oregon Population Forecast Program (Marquez, Sharygin, Loftus, Alkitkat, Montcho, Swanson and Wilde, 2023), June 25, 2023

The numbers as a table
Students in kindergarten through high school per 100 residents
1970: 1,645 students among 6,247 people26.3
2025: 878 students among about 7,400 people11.9
Age

Almost three in ten people are 65 or older

The share of residents aged 65 and older rose from about 19% in 2000 to about 29% in 2020, against 18% statewide. The state forecast expects 35% by 2030. People in conversation put it at ‘about a third’.

Sources: Population Research Center, Portland State University, for the Oregon Population Forecast Program (Marquez, Sharygin, Loftus, Alkitkat, Montcho, Swanson and Wilde, 2023), June 25, 2023; Wallowa Memorial Hospital and partners; hosted by OHSU Oregon Office of Rural Health, 2025 (PDF created November 26, 2025)

The numbers as a table
Share of people aged 65 and older
Wallowa County, 200018.96%
Wallowa County, 202029.28%
Oregon, 202018.04%
Hospital’s 2025 assessment28.9%
Forecast for 203035.19%

The official forecast is Portland State University’s, from 2023. Adding up its age table gives 7,406 people in 2025, 7,184 in 2035 and 6,717 in 2045 5. It expects people aged 65 and older to be 35% of the county by 2030 5. It says that “by 2040 deaths are expected to outnumber births 3 to 1” 5. Each city has a growth boundary, the line the state requires around the land a city may grow into. The forecast has Enterprise and Joseph gaining people inside their boundaries, and Lostine and Wallowa slipping. The countryside outside all four falls from 3,011 people to 2,290 by 2040 5.

A forecast is a set of assumptions. This one assumes that from 2026 on, 36 more people a year move in than move out. It holds the share of empty homes and the size of households at their 2020 values. It leaves out “specific scenarios of climate change, political unrest, or other shocks” 5. The county planning director wrote, in a 2023 survey response the forecasters printed, that “after Covid, there appear to be more people re-locating to the county as they can work remotely” 5. The next twenty years depend on decisions no table contains.

Seven storylines

Follow a question into the county.

The October 2026 conversations are read in full, beside the county’s numbers, in The price of staying.

The price of staying
Part one · Staying and returning
Enterprise’s streets: a setting for this inquiry, not a photograph of an interview participant.
Visitor7 · 2013-04-09 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image & source ↗
01 · A story to follow

Will the next generation have a place to live?

Reported experience

What people here have said. The warnings are old and specific. The county’s 2021 economic analysis passed along, as anecdote, that “spouses vetoed moves to the area precisely because there was no housing they regarded as suitable” 2. A survey respondent wrote in 2021 that “second and third homes are outpricing the cost/availability of local people’s first homes” 4. The county planning director told the state’s forecasters in 2023 that “business owners note that they have been unable to hire some employees because they can’t find housing” 5. In May 2023, in a meeting with the governor, a board member working with Working Homes called the shortage “a stranglehold” on the county’s economic base 16.

In October 2026, twelve or more of about twenty people in the county named a home for the people who work here as its first problem. Nearly all of them said in the same breath that the place must stay as it is. Every proposal they could name had met resistance at a planning commission over character. Nine raised second homes without being asked, and most would charge them something. The two people who sell houses for a living said the second-home share is smaller than the talk suggests. Building cost and interest rates, they said, are the taller wall. Seven said the children leave, and that the ones who come back buy with money made somewhere else 51.

Documentary records

What the records show. Two in three children born here between 1978 and 1983 no longer lived in the area as adults, by Opportunity Atlas data a foundation reported in 2020 19. Seasonal homes were 12.6% of the county’s housing in 2000 1 and about 14.5% in the 2020 to 2024 estimates 7. In July 2024 Working Homes, a nonprofit the Chieftain describes as created by Wallowa Resources, bought Enterprise’s EM&M building, 27 apartments over six storefronts 17, 16. By September 2026 the rewiring was under way with the tenants still in place 18.

One Enterprise brokerage’s cards say who has been buying. Of its 486 buyers from 2020 through 2025, 236, or 48.5%, were from the county or coming back to it. Western Oregon supplied the next largest group, 22.8% 52. In October 2026 the same office counted 79 homes for sale county-wide, the most in a long time, 17 of them between $250,000 and $350,000. A serviced lot in a Joseph subdivision cost about $100,000. A buyer that week was quoted about $375 a square foot to build, which makes a 1,500-square-foot house about $562,500 before the land 52.

Open questions

What is still unknown. Neither the 2009 baseline nor the 2021 analysis counts housing units or records a sale price. The 2021 analysis reports rent only through a housing-authority table, a median of $656 with no date 2. Whether the county approved backyard homes in its Rural Residential zone, against “some community opposition” in 2023, is not recorded 5. The 86 people who answered the 2021 survey averaged 63 years old and eight in ten owned their homes 4. The summary does not say how many rent.

Homes

Homes kept being built while the population did not grow

Housing units counted by the census, and the 2020 to 2024 estimate.

From 2,821 homes for 6,247 people in 1970 to about 4,349 homes for about 7,400 people now. Smaller households and seasonal homes account for much of the gap; the census counts 630 of today’s homes as kept for seasonal or recreational use. The last column is a five-year survey estimate, not a count.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, 2012; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020–2024 five-year estimates

The numbers as a table
Housing units
19702,821
19803,636
19903,755
20003,900
20104,108
2020–24 (forecast)4,349
Homes

The median house in Joseph doubled in five years

One brokerage’s broker-involved sales from the regional listing service, as summarised on its yearly cards and shared with the Record. Small counts move the medians, especially in Wallowa and at the lake. Joseph roughly doubled in five years. People in Wallowa described the rise as a Joseph export, moving down the valley as buyers are priced out of Joseph, then Enterprise.

Source: Ruby Peak Realty, Enterprise, October 2026

The numbers as a table
2020 median sale2025 median sale
Joseph$256,000 (20 sales)$550,000 (22 sales)
Enterprise$225,000 (37 sales)$395,000 (33 sales)
Wallowa$190,000 (5 sales)$449,000 (15 sales)
Wallowa Lake$355,000 (17 sales)$378,000 (6 sales)
Questions to carry with you
  • What is harder to find now than when you first lived here?
  • What would make a good life possible without inheriting property?
Enterprise ↗Joseph ↗Browse land records ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
The Wallowa River. This landscape image does not depict a ceremony or a particular cultural site.
Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington · 2017-05-25 · Public domain · Image & source ↗
02 · A story to follow

Who is coming home, and what would let more?

Reported experience

What people here have said. The Nez Perce Wal’áwa Homeland, a Wallowa nonprofit that describes itself as “a landback nonprofit—not a tribal government, land trust, or advocacy campaign” 21, adopted a hundred-year plan in 2023. Within thirty years it wants “Indigenous people of this valley increasingly reside, raise families, work, celebrate, practice culture and walk the land here in wal’áwa,” and it names housing, jobs and the cost of travel as the barriers 20. The plan quotes Taz Conner, a wal’wá•ma descendant, in 1994: “It is time once again to let the land hear the familiar sounds that have been developed over thousands of years here in the land of winding waters” 20. The Homeland’s own account of the years since: “few have returned” 21. The Nez Perce Tribe at Lapwai, a separate voice, records a reservation of about 7.5 million acres in 1855 cut to about 750,000 in 1863. It also records rights off the reservation that it says the courts have upheld 22.

Documentary records

What the records show. The celebration grounds at Wallowa cover 323 acres 20. The Homeland’s own pages disagree about the first gathering: the plan and the About page say 1989 20, 21; the Tamkaliks page says 1990 45. The 2026 Tamkaliks ran July 17 to 19. As it does each year, it closed with a walasit service and a friendship feast to which the county is invited 45. The Tribe’s fisheries department lists the Lostine River among its production projects 23. Coho reintroduced to the Lostine from 2017 sent more than 5,000 adults past Bonneville Dam in 2020. That reopened a Grande Ronde fishery that had been closed for forty years 24. In 2021 the Tribe estimated 914 spring and summer Chinook returning to the Lostine 25.

Open questions

What is still unknown. No source counts the descendants who have moved back. The plan’s three-year review, due around 2026, is not published online, and the Record has not retrieved Lostine returns after 2021. The Homeland’s goals are a nonprofit’s intentions, not the policy of the Nez Perce, Umatilla or Colville governments, which appear in its records as contributors.

Questions to carry with you
  • What makes belonging possible in everyday life?
  • What knowledge or story should remain within your family or community?
Nez Perce Tribe ↗Wallowa Homeland ↗Read the homeland chapter ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
Part two · Working and caring
Working land near Enterprise, shown as landscape context.
Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives · 14 June 2011 · CC BY 4.0 · Image & source ↗
03 · A story to follow

Who works the land, and at what cost?

Reported experience

What people here have said. Regional interviewees in 2021 named a “lack of affordable and available agricultural land/pasture to support new ranching businesses” 3. Of the 2024 virtual-fence trial on the moraine, the Extension agent said: “we still maintain this as a working landscape. And livestock grazing is a piece of that” 27.

Documentary records

What the records show. Farmland covered about a quarter of the county in 2007 and national forest about 56% in 2009 1. The 2022 plan for the East Moraine recommended 80 cow-calf pairs on the southern pasture in August and September. The 2015 plan had run 100 to 125 south of the elk fence. It priced permanent cross-fencing at $75,000 and called it “one of the most significant barriers” 26. Collars came next, at about $18,000 a mile for the wire they replace and $48 to $50 a year each to lease 27. A Wallowa rancher wrote in 2011 that “nearly 40 percent of our costs were incurred after the cattle left the ranch” 29. The ranch now processes shares locally and sells wholesale beef through Brownsville 30. Wallowa Resources reports 423 landowners it worked with in the county in 2024, and 50 forest plans covering 30,093 acres across northeast Oregon 31.

Open questions

What is still unknown. The payroll statistics leave out self-employed ranchers, and the state suppressed the private agricultural line in 2025: 45 establishments visible, their workers not 9. The moraine’s acreage appears as 1,791, 1,820 and 1,824 in three documents 12, 26, 13. The collar trial’s results had not been reported 27.

Questions to carry with you
  • Which tasks, costs and skills are invisible from the road?
  • What would make a new tool useful enough to keep, and what would make you reject it?
Wallowa Resources ↗Land & water ↗Explore map layers ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
Imnaha: distance and daily routines deserve a place alongside the valley towns.
Finetooth · 2010-09-18 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image & source ↗
04 · A story to follow

Who cares for the county, and who cares for them?

Reported experience

What people here have said. The hospital’s 2025 assessment ranked “Social Determinants of Health, especially housing” first among the county’s ten health needs 14. Of the people it interviewed, 73.6% called access to care a moderate or major problem 14. In the 2021 survey, 69% agreed they had “enough medical and dental providers.” 41% agreed their community had “many residents struggling with substance abuse,” and 27% said the same of mental illness 4. 58% agreed that “child care is hard to find,” and one respondent wrote: “Once we leave our homes, we have no cell service until we get to town, which is a two-hour drive” 4. After the August 2022 hail, Wallowa’s mayor put the town at about 400 homes on city water and sewer and said “every home was damaged” 32.

In October 2026, six people said, without being asked, that elders have nowhere to go when a house becomes too much. A senior community with care and housing under one roof was the most widely supported idea of the week, on one condition. It has to be nice, because the word affordable carries a stigma here. Four people, employers and a landlord among them, described workers keeping their hours under full time to hold on to Oregon Health Plan coverage. Few employers here can offer insurance 51.

Documentary records

What the records show. In the 2009 survey a third of 98 children aged 13 and under were in no care outside the family, and 14% were in a center. That was too few, the report said, to generalize from 1. Early in the pandemic the hospital worked with an existing provider to open child care for its staff, about sixteen places. Who runs it now, and whether it is still open, is not published 37. In the 2018 to 2022 estimates, 81.5% of households had a broadband subscription, against 90.5% statewide 15. After the hail, the Emergency Board approved $2 million on September 23, 2022, and the next shortage was contractors 33. A case manager served 324 households through April 2023 and closed 30 cases 34. A February 2024 microgrid study, which followed the county energy plan adopted in December 2023, modelled ten scenarios costing from $1.82 million to $158.49 million. Its goal, it said, “was not to achieve investment-grade costs or construction documentation” 35.

Care also arrives as a shared meal. In 2024 the Joseph United Methodist congregation began free Monday-night dinners at The Place on South Lake Street, to meet hunger and loneliness in the same room. About 125 people came to the first. Attendance ran around 250 in the second season. On March 23, 2026, the dinner served more than 385 meals. Local chefs take a Monday each, and sponsors from Building Healthy Families and Wallowa Resources to the land trust and the service clubs pay for the food. The season runs February through April 55.

Open questions

What is still unknown. No source counts the county’s child care slots or providers; the 2024 regional assessment reports zero center-based preschool slots in the county, on 2022 data 15. Nothing in the microgrid plan is funded or built. The program’s own site places it “in progress of the planning phase,” and the only priced next step is a $300 utility review 36, 35. How many hail-damaged homes were fully repaired, no one has recorded.

Care

More than half the county left it for medical care last year

From the hospital’s 2025 community health needs assessment and the 2024 regional health assessment. The assessment ranked housing and the social conditions around it first among the county’s ten health needs.

Sources: Wallowa Memorial Hospital and partners; hosted by OHSU Oregon Office of Rural Health, 2025 (PDF created November 26, 2025); Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization, 2024 (data accessed November 2024; child care access figure 2019 vintage)

The numbers as a table
Percent
Residents who left the county for medical care in the past year, 202555.7%
Residents aged 65 or older, 2025 assessment28.9%
Children under six with access to a regulated child care slot, 201917%
The same, Oregon23%
Care

Joseph’s free Monday dinners tripled in three seasons

Meals served, as counted by the organizers.

The Joseph United Methodist congregation’s Monday Night Community Dinners run February through April, cooked by local chefs and paid for by sponsors. A second series runs in Wallowa on fall Sundays, in its third season; one person who helps run it put a night at about 150, with people who gave the school $50,000 at a table with people who need a hot meal.

Sources: Elkhorn Media Group, from a Joseph Mainstreet release, March 30, 2026; The Wallowa Record, October 2026

The numbers as a table
People at a dinner
First dinner, 2024125
Typical, 2025250
March 23, 2026385
Questions to carry with you
  • What happens here when the power, road or usual support is unavailable?
  • Whose unpaid work would you like more people to understand?
Imnaha ↗Everyday services ↗Troy ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
Enterprise and the fields around it. The county’s identity is the working land; its payroll is health care and government.
Sam Beebe · 2007-07-08 · CC BY 2.0 · Image & source ↗
05 · A story to follow

Where does the county’s money come from?

Reported experience

What people here have said. About twenty people in Enterprise, Joseph and Wallowa were asked in October 2026 about the county’s future. They run the hospital, the schools, the land trust, the development district, the music alliance, a real-estate office, a coffeehouse, a restaurant, and the county itself. Six of them said, without being asked, that the county’s dependence on decisions made somewhere else had moved rather than ended. Timber once; Medicare, Medicaid, transfer payments and federal land payments now. Five said, in nearly the same words, that people here do not look for handouts, and asked for fewer rules before any program. Eight said tourism is necessary and feared at once. It feeds families and gives teenagers summer jobs; smoke cut one business’s summer roughly in half; most would rather have a longer season than a bigger July 51.

Documentary records

What the records show. The county’s residents had a personal income of $509.3 million in 2024. Half of it arrived without a paycheck: $147.9 million in transfer payments and $108.1 million in dividends, interest and rent. Government employers, which here include the hospital district and the schools, paid $79.7 million in earnings, and farms $24.9 million 46. Visitors spent an estimated $38.7 million in 2025 49. Of the 2,855 payroll jobs in 2025, local government paid an average of $65,827 and the private sector $50,016 9. About 900 of the 2,067 private jobs sit in cells the Bureau of Labor Statistics hides to protect small employers. So the foundries and the mill do not appear by name 9. The county government took in $11.5 million in fiscal 2025 and cut its budgeted positions from 72.35 to 62.71. It collected $612,998 from its 5% lodging tax, which implies about $12.3 million in taxable stays 47. Headwaters Economics scores the county’s capacity to plan and apply for help at 54.8 of 100, 29th of Oregon’s 36 counties 48. Federal payments in lieu of taxes rose from $690,395 in 2025 to $1,497,560 in 2026 50.

The county is on the thin end of a national pattern. Rural businesses are 12% of the country’s businesses and receive less than 1% of its venture capital. The number of rural community banks fell from 5,029 in 1994 to 2,618 in 2024 57. The incentives that recruit large employers reach more than 30% of establishments with over 1,000 employees and less than 0.2% of those with fewer than 250. The average package is $178 million for 1,500 promised jobs 58. The federal credit program meant to reach small businesses put about 9% of its 2022–2023 transactions into rural ones. Oregon’s $83.5 million share runs through insured bank loans and through community lenders such as development districts and tribal governments 59.

Open questions

What is still unknown. Why the federal land payment doubled in 2026 is not published; if the cause was the lapse of Secure Rural Schools, the 2027 payment falls back 50. What is behind the 8.3% one-year job loss reported for July 2026 is not explained in the release 11. Which employers sit in the hidden payroll cells cannot be read from the data 9. No public record counts homes owned from outside the county; the 630 seasonal units in the census estimates are the only stand-in 7. How much of Oregon’s federal small-business credit has reached a lender or a borrower in this county is not published 59.

Money

Half of the county’s personal income does not come from a paycheck

Personal income of county residents in 2024, $509.3 million in all.

Transfer payments are money residents receive from government programs rather than from work. Within earnings, government employers, which here include the hospital district and the schools, paid $79.7 million and farms $24.9 million. Earnings are what remains after the other two parts.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024 estimates, released 2025

The numbers as a table
Millions of dollars, 2024Share
Earnings from work, after social insurance contributions$253.3m49.7%
Transfer payments: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other program income$147.9m29%
Dividends, interest and rent$108.1m21.2%
Work

More jobs, better paid, and more of them public

Covered jobs are most paid jobs but not self-employment, so ranch and farm proprietors are largely missing. The largest private industry the state would disclose in 2025 was outpatient health care, with 219 jobs. In the year to July 2026 the county had the largest job loss in Oregon, down 8.3%.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015 annual averages; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025 annual averages (2022–2024 also cited)

The numbers as a table
20152025
Jobs covered by unemployment insurance2,4952,855
Of those, government jobs648789
Retail jobs257288
Average annual pay, not adjusted for inflation$32,237$55,379
Questions to carry with you
  • Which paycheck or payment in your household depends on a decision made outside the county?
  • If the county had more of the lodging tax to spend, what would you want it spent on?
Industries & economy ↗Wallowa Memorial Hospital ↗County data & limits ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
Part three · Making and deciding
Joseph’s Main Street, a place to begin following the connections between work and community.
Visitor7 · 2013-04-09 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image & source ↗
06 · A story to follow

What is made here, and who learns to make it?

Reported experience

What people here have said. The 2021 analysis said the county “still produces 60–70 million board feet of lumber each year, primarily from private lands,” though nothing replaced timber at its peak 2. A caster who helped start Joseph’s first foundry remembers being told “You’re a tooler!” 39.

Documentary records

What the records show. Valley Bronze has cast in Joseph since 1982 38. The Joseph Timber sawmill closed in 2002 40. In 2025, 29 home-building firms employed 66 people 9.

Open questions

What is still unknown. The 2025 job count for manufacturing is hidden; only 14 establishments show 9. Valley Bronze publishes neither an employee count nor an apprenticeship, and Parks Bronze has no live site to check 38, 39. Which trades a young person could enter here, and at what wage, no table shows.

Questions to carry with you
  • Who taught you, and what did they teach that no manual could?
  • What would an apprentice need besides training to build a life here?
Work & livelihoods ↗The film collection ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗
The Wallowa County Courthouse. Public decisions can be followed through records and participants’ accounts.
Finetooth · 2010-09-17 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image & source ↗
07 · A story to follow

Who gets to shape the future?

Reported experience

What people here have said. In 2009, people aged 18 to 28 were 8% of the county and 3% of the people at public meetings 1. In 2021, 57% agreed that people here “come together to solve community problems” and 37% that they “welcome newcomers” 4. The 2021 analysis admitted that pandemic rules “prevented large public gatherings and thus limited the public engagement possible” 2. A columnist and long-time resident wrote in 2023: “This community still has problems, but we are rich in the reserves it takes to solve problems” 44.

In October 2026, seven of about twenty people said the same few hundred people run the fair, the festivals and the boards, and that they are tired. One of the twenty local seats on the November ballot was contested. Ten wanted the pace of change kept. They pointed to the decisions the county had made before: the state airport kept at Joseph, a 2006 vision that asked for no mega anything, the East Moraine bought. Six described the arts calendar and the ranch-and-rodeo calendar as two worlds that share almost no people. Six said that being known is not the same as belonging, and that people who feel different leave 51.

Documentary records

What the records show. Voters turned down a county library district on May 15, 2018, 1,979 to 1,102 41. By August, literacy kits had gone to Building Healthy Families. Librarians and the Imnaha and Troy schools were asking to choose books, and the basement at Wallowa Resources was being discussed for storage 42. The East Moraine purchase drew $3.5 million in federal forest-legacy money, $1 million from state parks, $300,000 from the Nez Perce Tribe and more than $1.1 million from individuals 12. In May 2026, with 61% turnout, voters ended the county’s part in the Greater Idaho movement, on unofficial results 43.

The county has voted on where it belongs. In May 2023 a measure requiring the commissioners to meet twice a year about moving the Oregon-Idaho border finished seven votes ahead after the final count 54. The meetings were held every February and August after that. On May 19, 2026, voters repealed the requirement, 2,044 to 1,319 in the election-night count; the last required meeting had been held on February 25 53.

Open questions

What is still unknown. The only source that preserves the 2006 vision gives no count of participants. The original has not been obtained, and a figure of 720 that is often repeated does not appear in it 1. The 2009 survey hoped for 541 returns and got 276 1; the 2021 survey had 86 4. Whether the indicators have been measured again, and whether the energy plan’s seven-person review panel was ever seated, are open 36.

Decisions

The county has decided for itself before

The choices people pointed to when they said the place should keep its pace.

People who want the pace of change kept pointed to the moraine, the vision statement and the airport kept at Joseph; people who want change pointed to the same record as proof the county can act. The border votes show how close its arguments run.

Sources: Wallowa Resources, Undated page; Oregon State University Extension Service and Rural Studies Program, with Wallowa Resources, NEOEDD and The Ford Institute for Community Building, February 2010; data vintages 2000–2009; Wallowa Land Trust, January 21, 2020; Wallowa Land Trust, February 8, 2023 (signing January 26, 2023); Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, September 23, 2020; KOIN, June 2023; Wallowa County Chieftain, May 19, 2026; Wallowa County Chieftain, September 3, 2026

The numbers as a table
WhenWhat happened
1996Wallowa Resources is formed in Enterprise after the mills close, to keep working land and work together.
2006A county vision statement asks for “wide-open spaces and intact ranchlands” and “a County with no mega anything.”
2009The first Vital Wallowa reading finds the county “roughly three-quarters vital, with some clear work to do.”
January 20201,791 acres of the East Moraine above Wallowa Lake pass into county ownership after almost $6.5 million is raised.
September 2020The irrigation district, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Umatilla tribes and the state agree on water releases from Wallowa Lake, the condition for rebuilding the dam with fish passage.
January 2023An easement makes the moraine’s protection permanent.
May 2023A measure requiring the commissioners to discuss joining Idaho passes by seven votes.
May 2026Voters repeal it, 2,044 to 1,319.
September 2026Work begins on the dam, with a fish ladder to follow by 2028.
Questions to carry with you
  • When did you feel heard in a local decision? When did you not?
  • What would you use to judge whether a change helped this community?
East Moraine ↗Source register ↗County data & limits ↗
Add your experience or hopes ↗

Possibilities, not promises

Each idea below starts from a documented local need; none is funded, forecast or agreed.

Tools for working land

Ranching + ecology + maps + equipment repair

Start from the collars on East Moraine cattle since 2024, after the 2022 plan costed the cross-fencing its rotation needed at $75,000 26, 27. Test a full season on a private operation, counting cost per head, failures, welfare and dead ground. Set the result against the research center’s caution that it “isn’t a replacement for animal husbandry or ranch management practices” 28.

Making and repairing locally

Craft + design + fabrication + teaching

Start from six commercial spaces in an Enterprise building being rehabilitated 17, 18. Add 29 home-building firms with 66 workers among them, about two apiece 9, and a foundry seeking “foundrymen, welders, or fabricators” 38. Before proposing machinery, ask those shops about customers, workspace, succession and apprentice pay.

Keeping essentials running

Electrical work + controls + maintenance + emergency planning

Start from a plan that knows its limits: circuits near their daytime-load ceilings, a biomass plant too large for the building beside it, a first step costing $300 35. The 2022 hail showed money can arrive before the trades to spend it 33. Name who would operate a system and what it could power in an outage.

What would a useful tool help you do? ↗
Original recordings · Connected to this page

Hear the people inside the story.

All recordings
1:00:54
History & memory

Bob Webb: Preserving our History & Family Stories

From Josephy Center · 2026

48:29
Work & livelihoods

Building Community Series: Main Street Business

From Josephy Center · 2025

1:19:49
Indigenous life

Wenix Red Elk "Áwtni Tk''átat (First Foods)"

From Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland · 2021

Your words, with your permission

Many ways to call a place home.

No responses to these questions have been published yet. The sources and the films on this page are existing work, with their own authors and dates.

Share an experience

What makes this home?

Tell us about an ordinary moment that explains what makes this place home for you.

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

A life here in 2046

Imagine an ordinary day here in 2046 after twenty good years. Who is able to live here, and what made that possible?

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

Coming home

What does being at home in Wallowa country mean to you, and what would make it easier for you or the next generation to be here?

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

The work behind the view

What work on the land do you want the next generation to be able to continue, and what would need to change to make that possible?

Respond in your own words ↗Share an experience

When neighbors show up

Tell us about a time someone here helped you, or a time the help you needed was hard to find. Share only details you want made public.

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

Skills worth passing on

What do you know how to make, repair, grow or do that you would like someone younger to learn? What would help them earn a living doing it here?

Respond in your own words ↗Share an experience

A decision that changed a place

Describe a local decision you lived through. Who had a say, what changed, and what should a future decision do differently?

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

Where the money comes from

Which paycheck, payment or customer in your household depends on a decision made outside the county? What would make it steadier?

Respond in your own words ↗Imagine & reflect

Useful tools, on your terms

What part of your work or daily life could a better tool help with? What would you want to keep in human hands?

Respond in your own words ↗

What happens next

1. Your note is saved privately. Nothing is public yet.

2. The editor reads it. Your private link always shows the status.

3. If the wording needs to change, you approve the new wording first, from that link. A voice note is transcribed by the editor and the transcript comes to you the same way.

4. If it is approved, it is published with the credit you chose. You can correct or withdraw it at any time.

Two memories of one place

Both can be published, each with its author, its date and its own wording. Where they differ, the Record says so and notes what independent evidence establishes; it does not rewrite either account.

If you lose your private link

Write to edan@portlandciviclab.org from the email you gave. Once the editor has confirmed it is you, the editor can take the account down on your instruction or issue a new link. Corrections need the link or a new submission.

Follow the evidence

Sources

Numbers in the text refer to the sources below; “p.” means printed page.

  1. Vital Wallowa Indicator Project: 2009 Baseline Assessment Report ↗
    Oregon State University Extension Service and Rural Studies Program, with Wallowa Resources, NEOEDD and The Ford Institute for Community Building · February 2010; data vintages 2000–2009
    Printed pp.4, 9, 20–21, 32, 34–36, 42–43, 49–55, 58–60, 62

    Reprints the 2006 vision (facilitated by NCSU faculty, guided by the Wallowa County Economic Action Team; no participant count) and takes a 2009 baseline on 26 indicators; survey n=276, ±5.8%. Farmland share is 2007, national forest share 2009. The indicators were developed ‘relying on the input from the community forums and the 2006 vision statement’ (p.4). Indicator 6 percentages rest on 57 parents reporting on 98 children; the report says the sample is not adequate for generalization.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  2. Economic Opportunity Analysis: 2021 — Wallowa County ↗
    Wallowa County Board of Commissioners; prepared by PARC Resources with Oregon DLCD and Business Oregon · 2021 (TAC meetings June 2020–April 2021)
    Printed pp.2, 10, 14–15, 25, 28, 70, 74

    Planning document; its vision was drafted by a six-member committee under pandemic limits. The p.25 lumber figure is a typo; p.28 governs. The two transfer-payment shares on p.15 are the document’s own unreconciled conflict. Table 17 rent figures are undated.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  3. Community Needs Assessment ↗
    Northeast Oregon Economic Development District · May 2021; interviews January–early March 2021
    Printed p.14 (Built & Natural Environments); p.17 (Economic Development challenges)

    Regional findings for Baker, Union and Wallowa counties from 70+ volunteer interviews; not disaggregated by county.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  4. Oregon Voices Data Summary: Wallowa County ↗
    The Ford Family Foundation, with ECONorthwest and PSU Regional Research Institute · April 2023; fielded from summer 2021
    Pages 1–7

    86 respondents (77 random-household, 9 engagement), average age 63, eight in ten homeowners; the summary publishes no renter count. Unweighted, no margin of error published.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  5. Coordinated Population Forecast for Wallowa County, its Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB), and Area Outside UGBs 2023–2073 ↗
    Population Research Center, Portland State University, for the Oregon Population Forecast Program (Marquez, Sharygin, Loftus, Alkitkat, Montcho, Swanson and Wilde, 2023) · June 25, 2023
    Pp.5, 9–11, 14, 17, 18

    Current official forecast (Cycle 3, 2022–2025). Report distributed by the program as a PDF (direct copy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lOjdiv5V22XFYFSXLZ2r5LDCtvC2Digr/view). Table 2 is by urban growth boundary, not incorporated city limits. Five-year county totals cited are column sums of Table 5, validated against the report’s printed 2020, 2030 and 2040 figures.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  6. Decennial Census population counts, Wallowa County, Oregon: 2000, 2010, 2020 ↗
    U.S. Census Bureau · April 1 counts, 2000, 2010, 2020
    Tables DECENNIALSF12000.P001 (P001001), DECENNIALSF12010.P1, DECENNIALPL2020.P1 (P1_001N), geography 0500000US41063

    County totals 7,226 / 7,008 / 7,391; they match the PSU report’s Table 1.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  7. American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates 2020–2024, Wallowa County: Data Profiles DP03, DP04, DP05 and Detailed Table B25004 ↗
    U.S. Census Bureau · 2020–2024 five-year estimates
    DP04 total, occupied and vacant units and median value; B25004_006E seasonal vacancy (±130); DP03_0062E median household income

    Five-year averages, not point-in-time counts. The price-to-income ratio (5.9) and the seasonal share of stock (14.5%) are arithmetic on the estimates.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  8. Fall Membership Report 2025-26 (with 2015-16 for comparison) ↗
    Oregon Department of Education · October 2025 count; file posted February 12, 2026
    District worksheets for October 2015 and October 2025

    Four-district totals 857 (October 2015) and 878 (October 2025) are our sums of the district rows (Enterprise 404/425, Joseph 242/249, Wallowa 209/199, Troy 2/5); the files print no county total. The 2015–16 worksheet is keyed on attending district, the 2025–26 worksheet on district of enrollment. The 2009–10 figure (872) is from the 2021 EOA’s Table 2, a separate tabulation of ODE data.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  9. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, annual averages, Wallowa County (area 41063), 2022–2025 ↗
    U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025 annual averages (2022–2024 also cited)
    Rows agglvl 70 (county total), 71 (by ownership), 74–78 (by NAICS); disclosure_code N marks suppressed cells

    Covered payroll jobs only; excludes proprietors and the self-employed. Suppressed cells are unknown, not zero. NAICS 236115: 66 jobs across 29 establishments in 2025; ‘about two apiece’ is arithmetic.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  10. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, annual averages, Wallowa County (area 41063), 2015 ↗
    U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2015 annual averages
    Rows agglvl 70 and 71

    NAICS 2012 basis; county totals comparable with 2025, industry detail only loosely. Earliest year this endpoint serves is 2014.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  11. July 2026 Employment and Unemployment in Oregon’s Counties ↗
    Oregon Employment Department · August 25, 2026
    P.2, second paragraph

    Total nonfarm payroll change by place of work; the release does not attribute the county’s 8.3% loss to any employer.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  12. 1,791 Acres of Wallowa Lake’s East Moraine Acquired for Wallowa County ↗
    Wallowa Land Trust · January 21, 2020
    Headline; ‘Push to protect moraine receives broad support’; ‘A Community Legacy’

    Press release by the purchasing partnership; funding stack and acreage as stated. Acreage differs from later documents (1,820; 1,824).

    Checked 2026-09-14
  13. Final Hurdle Cleared to Permanently Protect East Moraine Community Forest ↗
    Wallowa Land Trust · February 8, 2023 (signing January 26, 2023)
    Paragraphs 2–3; Katy Nesbitt quotation

    Organization’s account of the signed easement, co-held with the Oregon Department of Forestry; gives 1,824 acres.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  14. Wallowa Memorial Hospital 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment — Executive Summary ↗
    Wallowa Memorial Hospital and partners; hosted by OHSU Oregon Office of Rural Health · 2025 (PDF created November 26, 2025)
    ‘Community Priorities’; ‘Aging Population’; ‘Outmigration for Care’; ‘Biggest Gaps in Service’

    Four-page summary; cites no years, sources or sample sizes for its statistics. Priority ranking came from providers and community leaders, not a resident vote.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  15. 2024 Community Health Assessment Report ↗
    Eastern Oregon Coordinated Care Organization · 2024 (data accessed November 2024; child care access figure 2019 vintage)
    Printed pp.70–71; child care access figure 2019, broadband 2018–2022, preschool slots 2022

    Indicator tables for Wallowa; mixed vintages on one page. Child care access (17% vs 23%) is from the 2019 Oregon Child Care Desert report; broadband (81.5% vs 90.5%) is ACS S2801 2018–2022; zero center-based preschool slots is 2022 data.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  16. Governor focuses on housing issues in Wallowa County visit ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain (Bill Bradshaw and Mike McInally); served at lagrandeobserver.com · May 6, 2023 (meeting May 5, 2023)
    Body text; Nels Gabbert quotation

    Newspaper report; Nels Gabbert is identified as a Wallowa Resources advisory board member and a key player with Working Homes, which the article describes as a nonprofit created by Wallowa Resources. He is recorded speaking at a meeting the governor attended, not addressing her directly. The wallowa.com URL for this article returns 404.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  17. Enterprise projects: EM&M building ↗
    Working Homes LLC · Undated page; acquisition July 2024
    EM&M Building, paragraphs 1–3

    Owner’s own account of purpose, not an outcome for tenants; the page does not establish nonprofit status (the owner is recorded here as Working Homes LLC).

    Checked 2026-09-14
  18. Working Homes advances housing, building preservation projects in Wallowa County ↗
    Elkhorn Media Group (Shannon Weidemann) · September 2, 2026
    EM&M paragraphs and ‘Current upgrades’ list

    Distinguishes completed, underway and anticipated work; no tenant interviews.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  19. Interdependence in Wallowa County (from the 2020 TOP report ‘Cornerstones: Economic Mobility and Belonging in Oregon’) ↗
    Oregon Community Foundation · 2020 report; page undated; underlying data 2017–2020
    Section ‘A community goal to support youth with economic opportunities’; endnote 10 (Opportunity Atlas)

    The two-in-three figure is Opportunity Atlas data for children born 1978–1983 and describes where that cohort lived as adults, i.e. decisions made in the 1990s–2000s; 2020 is the report’s publication year, not the measurement date.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  20. Strategic Planning — Nez Perce Wal’áwa Homeland 100-year strategic plan ↗
    Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland (nonprofit) · Adopted 2023
    ‘Our Story’ (1989 date, 323 acres); pull quote attributed ‘Taz Conner, 1994’ between ‘Our Guiding Values’ and ‘Our Mission’; Goal ‘Reciprocal Relationships’ (10-, 30-, 100-year horizons; ‘address barriers to return’); funders list

    A nonprofit’s stated intentions, distinct from the Nez Perce, Umatilla and Colville tribal governments, which it lists as contributors.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  21. About Us — Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland ↗
    Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland (nonprofit) · Undated page; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Who We Are’ (self-description); ‘Our Work’; ‘Organizational History’

    Self-description as ‘a landback nonprofit—not a tribal government’; dates the first Tamkaliks to 1989, while the Tamkaliks page says 1990.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  22. History — Nez Perce Tribe ↗
    Nez Perce Tribe · Undated page; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Treaties’ section

    The Tribe’s own account of the 1855 and 1863 treaties and reserved off-reservation rights; does not discuss the Wallowa country specifically.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  23. Fisheries Resources Management — Nez Perce Tribe ↗
    Nez Perce Tribe, Department of Fisheries Resources Management · Undated page; retrieved September 14, 2026
    Opening paragraph; ‘Production Division’ project list (Lostine River Supplementation Project)

    Establishes present-tense program presence in the Wallowa basin; no project detail or dates.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  24. Restored Coho Salmon Run Supports Tribal, Sport Fisheries in Northeast Oregon for First Time in Decades ↗
    NOAA Fisheries, West Coast Region · November 13, 2020
    Paragraphs 2–3

    The 5,000 figure counts fish past Bonneville Dam, not fish in the Lostine; credits the Umatilla and Nez Perce tribes and ODFW.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  25. Snake River Basin Adult Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Monitoring 2021 Annual Report ↗
    Nez Perce Tribe, Department of Fisheries Resources Management (copy hosted by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) · August 1, 2022 (spawn year 2021)
    P.4 (weir operation dates); p.26, Table 3 (Lostine River tributary escapement 914, 95% CI 746–1,164)

    Combines natural- and hatchery-origin fish; most recent year retrieved.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  26. East Moraine Community Forest Multi-Use Management Plan ↗
    Wallowa County / Wallowa Lake Moraines Partnership · July 2022 (PDF created August 25, 2022)
    Pp.41–46

    Gives ‘approximately 1,820’ acres. The 80-pair figure is a committee recommendation for one pasture and two months, not a recorded stocking change; no source records the stocking actually run. Contains no mention of virtual fencing, which enters the record with the February 2023 easement release.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  27. How virtual fencing could change rangeland management ↗
    Oregon Public Broadcasting, Think Out Loud (Gemma DiCarlo; host Dave Miller) · September 3, 2024 (updated September 10, 2024)
    Transcript; Pete Schreder on costs, training and the East Moraine pilot

    Computer-generated, volunteer-edited transcript; cost figures are the Extension agent’s spoken estimates, not a costed study. Trial results not yet reported.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  28. Virtual Fence Technology — Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center ↗
    Oregon State University, College of Agricultural Sciences · Undated page; describes a January 29, 2025 workshop
    Introductory text; blurb under ‘Part 3 – Up and Running’

    Research-center video series and workshop notes; no cost figures on the page.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  29. Where’s the grass-fed beef? ↗
    Cory Carman, published by PERC (Property and Environment Research Center) · February 24, 2011
    Paragraphs 5–7

    First-person, unaudited cost figure from a Wallowa ranch; the publisher is a free-market policy organization.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  30. About Us — Carman Ranch ↗
    Carman Ranch Direct · Undated page; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Ways To Buy’ (Cow Share; Wholesale)

    Producer’s own description of channels; wholesale beef is processed in Brownsville, shares by a local butcher.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  31. Forests — Wallowa Resources ↗
    Wallowa Resources · Page carries ‘2024 metrics’; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘All-Lands Approach to Forest Health’, 2024 metrics block

    Self-reported organizational metrics; ‘423 landowners’ is the Wallowa County figure, ‘50 forest management plans / 30,093 acres’ is northeast Oregon (Wallowa, Baker, Union, Umatilla); unclear whether acreage figures are annual or cumulative.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  32. Eastern Oregon town damaged by hail storm recovers together ↗
    Oregon Public Broadcasting, Think Out Loud (Sage Van Wing; host Dave Miller interviewing Mayor Gary Hulse) · August 25, 2022
    Transcript; Hulse on the number of homes damaged

    Mayor’s estimate two weeks after the storm, using homes on city sewer and water as the denominator; machine transcript.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  33. State sends millions to Eastern Oregon to deal with storm damage, pollution ↗
    Oregon Public Broadcasting (Antonio Sierra) · September 29, 2022 (Emergency Board meeting September 23, 2022)
    Opening Wallowa section, before ‘Nitrates and flooding’

    Approved funding is spending authority, not completed repairs; reports the contractor shortage.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  34. Honor UMCOR Sunday & OR-ID Disaster Response on March 15 ↗
    Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, The United Methodist Church · February 18, 2026 (grant period October 2022–April 2023)
    Bulleted list ‘OR-ID Conference UMCOR response by the numbers’, fourth bullet

    Grantmaker’s retrospective; 324 households served and 30 cases closed are service counts, not repaired homes.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  35. Wallowa County Microgrid Plan (filed as public testimony document 122821 on HB 2066) ↗
    ProtoGen, Inc. for Wallowa Resources Community Energy Program; filed by Wallowa County (John Hillock) · Plan dated February 2024; filed February 6, 2025
    Pp.1, 42–44

    Modelled scenarios only; states it is not construction-ready. Every page carries a ‘Confidential’ footer despite being public testimony. The study was a separate DOE/ODOE-funded effort contracted through Idaho National Laboratory, prepared alongside (not for) the county energy plan adopted December 20, 2023.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  36. Community Energy Plan and Microgrid pages — Wallowa Resources Community Energy Program ↗
    Wallowa Resources Community Energy Program · Undated pages; latest dated item November 2023; microgrid one-pager coded July 2024; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Community Review Panel’ (energy-plan page); opening status sentence (microgrid page)

    Program describes the microgrid as in the planning phase and the review panel prospectively; neither seating nor construction is documented.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  37. Workforce Introduction ↗
    Robert Barclay et al., Flex Monitoring Team · March 2025
    P.5, opening Wallowa Memorial paragraph

    Short case study; opening date, operator and present status of the child care are not stated.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  38. About — Valley Bronze of Oregon ↗
    Valley Bronze of Oregon · Undated; site footer © 2025; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Our History’; ‘Careers With Us’

    Company self-description; no current employee count or apprenticeship program is published.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  39. Steve Parks — Oregon Culture Keepers Roster ↗
    Oregon Folklife Network, University of Oregon · Undated profile; retrieved September 14, 2026
    ‘Bio’ section

    Folklife profile; substitute for the Parks Bronze company site, whose domain is now parked.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  40. Three minutes with … Justin Doherty ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain, via Historic Oregon Newspapers (University of Oregon Libraries) · February 7, 2018
    Page A9, headed Public Works, City of Joseph

    Single worker interview dating the Joseph Timber closure to 2002; roles refer to the interview date.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  41. Library district fails ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain (Paul Wahl), via Historic Oregon Newspapers · May 23, 2018 (vote May 15, 2018)
    Page A1, paragraphs 2–6

    Contemporary report of unofficial results for Measure 32-41; not a certified canvass.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  42. Books, continued from Page A1 ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain, via Historic Oregon Newspapers · August 8, 2018
    Page A9, ‘BOOKS’ continuation

    Distinguishes completed transfers from proposed placements: only the literacy-kit transfer to Building Healthy Families is reported as done; the Imnaha and Troy school selections were requests, and the Wallowa Resources basement was ‘space … we may be able to use’. The article gives no organizational status for either body. The A1 opening was not retrieved.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  43. 3 years after joining the Greater Idaho cause, Wallowa County votes to stop talking about it ↗
    Oregon Public Broadcasting (Antonio Sierra) · May 21–22, 2026 (URL path May 21; page shows May 22)
    Body text

    61% is turnout, not the measure’s margin, which the article describes only as a landslide.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  44. Rich Wandschneider: A ‘greater’ — and wealthier — Wallowa County ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain (opinion column) · May 17, 2023
    Body text

    Signed opinion by a longtime resident; its population and enrollment figures are unsourced and not used here.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  45. Tamkaliks Celebration — Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland ↗
    Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland (nonprofit) · Undated page carrying the 2026 schedule (July 17–19, 2026); retrieved September 14, 2026
    Undated page with 2026 schedule; section “Tamkaliks: Beginnings”

    Dates the first gathering to 1990, while the strategic plan and About page say 1989; the organization’s Foundation Document, which would settle it, is not published online. The July 17–19, 2026 dates are the announced schedule, not a record of the event held.

    Checked 2026-09-14
  46. CAINC4: Personal income and employment by major component, Wallowa County ↗
    U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis · 2024 estimates, released 2025
    County rows for Wallowa County, Oregon: personal income ($509.3 million); personal current transfer receipts ($147.9 million); dividends, interest and rent ($108.1 million); government and government enterprises earnings ($79.7 million); farm earnings ($24.9 million); per capita personal income ($67,705)

    Place-of-residence income. ‘Government’ earnings here include local government employers such as the hospital district and the school districts. Transfer receipts are mostly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Figures are nominal dollars.

    Checked 2026-10-11
  47. Wallowa County audits and adopted budgets ↗
    Wallowa County · Fiscal 2025 audit; fiscal 2026 adopted budget
    Fiscal 2025 audit: actual revenue, all funds ($11.5 million); transient lodging tax receipts ($612,998). Adopted budget: budgeted full-time-equivalent positions, 72.35 to 62.71

    The lodging tax is 5 percent, so the receipts imply a taxable base near $12.3 million; that division is the Record’s arithmetic, not a county figure. Budgeted positions are not filled positions.

    Checked 2026-10-11
  48. Rural Capacity Index, May 2026 data download ↗
    Headwaters Economics · May 2026
    County sheet, Wallowa County, Oregon: index 54.8 of 100; rank among Oregon counties computed from the same sheet, 29th of 36

    A composite of staffing, education, broadband and similar measures meant to indicate how much capacity a local government has to pursue and manage outside funding. The ranking is the Record’s sort of the published scores.

    Checked 2026-10-11
  49. Oregon Travel Impacts, 2025 ↗
    Travel Oregon; prepared by Dean Runyan Associates · April 2026
    County table, Wallowa County: visitor spending, 2025 ($38.7 million)

    A modelled estimate of visitor spending, not a count of receipts; the method is the consultant’s and is applied to every county in the state.

    Checked 2026-10-11
  50. Payments in Lieu of Taxes, county payments, 2025 and 2026 ↗
    U.S. Department of the Interior · 2025 and 2026 payment years
    Wallowa County, Oregon: $690,395 (2025); $1,497,560 (2026)

    PILT offsets property tax the county cannot levy on federal land. The formula nets out certain other federal payments, so a lapse elsewhere, such as Secure Rural Schools, can raise the PILT amount in the following year; no published explanation of the 2026 increase was found.

    Checked 2026-10-11
  51. Conversations in Wallowa County, October 2–8, 2026 ↗
    The Wallowa Record · October 2026
    Private field notes from about twenty recorded or noted conversations in Enterprise, Joseph and Wallowa, plus the October 4 candidate forum at Cloverleaf Hall; themes counted by how many people raised them without being asked

    Reported experience, not a survey. Most conversations were with people who run an institution; few were with anyone under 40; the county’s conservative majority is thinly represented. No one is named or quoted here without a written yes, and a count is of people who raised a theme, not of its weight. Anything said about a neighbor, employee or tenant was left out.

    Checked 2026-10-12
  52. Buyer origins 2020–2025 and the market in October 2026 ↗
    Ruby Peak Realty, Enterprise · October 2026
    Sales cards (RMLS broker-involved sales) shared by one of the office’s principal brokers, October 2–3 and 8, 2026: 236 of 486 buyers from the county or returning (48.5 percent), western Oregon 22.8 percent; 156 ‘investment or second home’ purchases 2020–2024. Market figures from a principal broker, October 5 and 7, 2026: 79 residential listings, 17 between $250,000 and $350,000; rents about $1,200 (two bedrooms) and $1,600–$1,800 (family house); a Joseph subdivision lot with utilities about $100,000; new construction quoted at about $375 a square foot

    One office’s broker-involved sales, not the whole market, and a listing count is a snapshot of a week. The ‘investment or second home’ column includes local buyers and commercial property, so it is not a count of second homes. The brokers asked, in writing, that the figures be credited to the office rather than to them by name.

    Checked 2026-10-08
  53. Election: Wallowa County voters repeal Greater Idaho meeting requirement ↗
    Wallowa County Chieftain · May 19, 2026
    Election-night count on Measure 32-011: 2,044 to 1,319; the 2023 measure required meetings every February and August; the last required meeting was February 25, 2026

    An election-night count, not the certified abstract; the county clerk holds the final figures.

    Checked 2026-10-13
  54. Marginal ‘Greater Idaho’ vote tightens to single digits in Wallowa County, OR ↗
    KOIN · June 2023
    After the final count the measure was seven votes ahead

    Television report on the May 2023 county measure; the margin is as the station reported it after the count was finalized.

    Checked 2026-10-13
  55. Joseph Community Dinners serve record breaking 385 meals ↗
    Elkhorn Media Group, from a Joseph Mainstreet release · March 30, 2026
    Monday Night Community Dinners at The Place, 303 S. Lake Street, Joseph, February through April; about 125 at the first dinner in 2024, around 250 in the second year, more than 385 meals on March 23, 2026; run by the Joseph United Methodist Church congregation under Pastor Beth Estock, with sponsors named

    A release from the organizers as published by a regional news site; the counts are the organizers’ own.

    Checked 2026-10-13
  56. 1970 Census of Population, Volume 1, Part 39, Oregon: Table 120, Educational and Family Characteristics for Counties ↗
    U.S. Bureau of the Census · 1973 (data as of April 1, 1970)
    Page 39-250, Wallowa County column, school enrollment: total enrolled 3 to 34 years old 1,719; nursery school 7; kindergarten 17 (public 12); elementary, grades 1 to 8, 1,014 (public 998); high school, grades 1 to 4, 614 (public 594); college 67. Total population 6,247 from Table 119, page 39-247

    Sample-based figures (the 1970 census asked these questions of a sample of households), so each count carries sampling error; the kindergarten-through-high-school total of 1,645 is the Record’s sum of three rows. Residents enrolled anywhere, not pupils of the county’s schools.

    Checked 2026-10-14
  57. Rural America’s Struggle to Access Private Capital ↗
    Center on Rural Innovation, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · May 2025
    The report page and the May 28, 2025 press release: rural businesses are 12 percent of U.S. businesses and receive less than 1 percent of venture capital; rural community banks fell from 5,029 in 1994 to 2,618 in 2024

    The full report sits behind a sign-up form; only the figures the center states publicly are used.

    Checked 2026-10-15
  58. Evaluating State and Local Business Incentives ↗
    Cailin Slattery and Owen Zidar, NBER working paper 26603; Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2020 · January 2020
    Page 13: more than 30 percent of establishments with over 1,000 employees receive discretionary subsidies, less than 0.2 percent of those under 250; $178.4 million on average for about 1,500 promised jobs

    An economists’ census of firm-specific incentive deals; the authors find some direct job gains and no strong evidence of broader growth.

    Checked 2026-10-15
  59. State Small Business Credit Initiative: Annual Report 2022–2023, and Business Oregon’s SSBCI program page ↗
    U.S. Department of the Treasury; Business Oregon · 2024; state page read October 15, 2026
    Treasury report pages 4 and 6: about 9 percent of transactions, $197 million, reached rural businesses. Business Oregon (oregon.gov/biz/programs/SSBCI): $83.5 million to Oregon, a Credit Enhancement Fund insuring bank and credit-union loans, and a Community Re-lender Fund buying into loans by CDFIs, economic development districts, tribal governments and nonprofits

    Neither source reports lending by county; the state page does not mention rural businesses.

    Checked 2026-10-15