Cattle ranchers, settlers and dreamers living in southeastern Oregon’s Burns in the 1880s named their frontier town after Scottish poet Robert Burns and set in motion an art-centric outlook that continues today.
Throughout the seasons, artists and writers, urban birders and nature seekers come to this remote high desert dot that could easily disappear amid Harney County’s vast open land.
And residents, some representing their family’s fourth and fifth generation here, have endured extreme conditions, from floods and fires to economic booms and busts, and remain undaunted.
This spring, after Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency in Harney County due to historic flooding, Burns residents helped their displaced neighbors and mustered on.
A feared second wave of flooding caused by rain, snowmelt and a faulty levee did not happen, and most businesses are now opened and welcome visitors.
The 44th annual Migratory Bird Festival, with wide-ranging events scheduled for April 10-13, however, was canceled. Festival organizers quickly pivoted to promote weekend activities, like journaling and birdhouse building workshops, partnering with community groups.
Instead of the festival’s planned bird trivia happy hour event at the Burns Elks Lodge Friday night, residents came to work at the Burgers from Birders dinner for flood-impacted residents of Burns and the Burns Paiute Reservation, as well as crisis workers.
The free Friday dinner and a taco meal Saturday at the Valley Golf Club in nearby Hines were hosted by some of the 300 people who registered for festival events and who asked to donate their ticket fees to the community rather than receive a refund.
“People gave from $10 to $800,” said festival organizer Tara Thissell.
Some of the festival presenters, like Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston of Bend, elected to speak to small groups of locals and the out-of-town birders who just couldn’t stay away.
“If we can experience places in this world where nature is the biggest deal and we’re not, those are places worth visiting,” Waterston said Friday at a reading of her work by members of the Harney Writers Guild at downtown Central Hotel’s event space.
Dreamers
Although agriculture and forestry are Harney County’s top industries, with 10,228 square miles, there’s room for everyone. A stake in the ground here could turn into something that lives on.
During a walking tour of downtown Burns, historian Karen Nitz highlights the “durable” 19th-century stone and brick buildings that have survived neglectful and risk-taking owners. And those that have benefited from people who dream big.
Nitz delights in telling this fact: The Burns Ford Garage opened here in 1910 before the city had paved roads. The idea for a dealership was sparked five years earlier when two Oldsmobiles passed through on a race from New York City to Portland’s 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition.
The Burns Ford Garage building was rebuilt after heavy snow push down parts of the roof years ago; but the Ford dealership, the second oldest in the West, still sells new models from its original main street location.
Nitz, who wrote the book “Images of America: Harney County” and heads the Claire McGill Luce Western History Room at the Harney County Library in Burns, also likes to tell how local children joined the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra and performed their first concert in Burns in 1912.
Rancher Bill Hanley, lawyer and artist C. E. S. Wood, and others paid for the children’s 30 instruments. The Burns symphony was founded by Mary V. Dodge, who later played a role in the Portland Youth Philharmonic.
Toward the end of the two-hour walking tour of North Broadway Avenue, the city’s main street, Nitz stops at one block with two structures: The 1937 Yee Quong building, owned by a Chinese restauranteur, and the 1929-1930 Central Hotel, a boarding house owned by the Ebar family who left the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France in the 1910s to raise sheep in the Harney Basin.
In 2016, the Central Hotel, boarded up for two decades, was purchased, then revitalized and retrofitted by Forrest and Jen Keady. Restore Oregon, a nonprofit preservation organization, said the couple also "restored a sense of pride and provided much-needed lodging along Burns’ main street."
Burns, with a population of about 2,700 people, and Hines, with 1,600 residents, attract visitors year-round traveling between Bend and Idaho and to Steens Mountain and the 190,000-acre Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
The Malheur refuge, called the “gem of the Pacific Flyway,” is a crucial stopover for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds and other wildlife. The refuge, visitor center and nature store were not impacted by flooding and remain open.
Jasper Lieber, a Portland software engineer and recreational ecologist, visited the refuge Thursday and saw many dozens of the migrating yellow-headed blackbirds “chattering away with their red-winged cousins.”
In an hour, he saw 22 species of birds, including an owl, hawks, pelicans and many ducks and songbirds. “Many of these birds don’t normally come west of the Cascades, so I’m excited to pump up my birding life list,” said Lieber.
He also appreciated the high desert geology and ecology, and “raw beauty, with huge scenic vistas of the ancient basalt lava flows and inland lakes and high mountain ranges like the Steens.”
Flood impact
The Oregon Department of Emergency Management released this aerial photo on Monday, March 31, 2025, of flooding in Harney County.Oregon Department of Emergency Management
Migratory Bird Festival organizer Thissell said the spring flooding and canceling the festival, one of the region’s biggest fundraisers, will have a “significant economic impact” on the community, businesses and residents.
The American Red Cross remains in Burns to assist people and the Army Corps of Engineers shored up the levee north of Burns that broke in the flood and swamped multiple homes and an entire mobile home park.
While the damage has been relatively limited, the flood has been felt across the city because it caused the “complete collapse” of the sewer system, City Manager Judy Erwin said previously.
Burns’ drinking water remains safe, the sheriff’s office said.
Jessica Hedges, executive director of the Harney County Chamber of Commerce, said that while the immediate flooding crisis has eased, “the Harney County community still has a long road before we are whole again.”
Donations directly to Harney Hope, Harney Hub and the Red Cross Cascade Region will sustain those affected while lawmakers and community partners advocate for the National State of Emergency Declaration and the resources that come with it, said Hedges.
The 12-room Central Hotel, completely booked for the festival, experienced “a cascade of canceled reservations,” said Jen Keady, who was born in Burns.
“On the bright side,” she said, “we were able to provide housing for emergency management personnel who came in from out of town and partnered with our local teams to bring the situation under better control.”
The Keadys also repurposed their retail property called The Palace as a hub to feed city and county workers, law enforcement, fire crews, emergency personnel and volunteers “who were working tirelessly around the clock,” Jen Keady said.
Locals launched the effort and with community support, nearly 500 lunches and 600 dinners were given out in a week, Keady said.
“We’re part of a resilient community,” she said. “Our goal has always been to give people a reason to stop and stay in Burns, not just pass through.”
— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072, jeastman@oregonian.com and follow her on X @janeteastman.