Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Granite, OR

Granite is a city in Grant County, in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, 47 miles west of Baker City by highway.

Granite was first established by miners after the discovery of gold along Granite Creek on July 4, 1862, and the area was originally called Granite Creek Falls, while a settlement called Granite City was established about 1.5 miles downstream and moved to its current location in 1867, where it was renamed Independence after the July 4 date of the gold discovery.

When the community's post office was established in 1878, it could not use the name Independence because another Oregon city already used it, so the name Granite was chosen for the granite rocks common to the area, and miner and business owner A. G. Tabor became the first postmaster, while Grant Thornburg became the first mayor after the city incorporated in 1900.

The 2020 census counted 32 people in Granite, in 17 households, with a median age of 60.6 years, making it one of the smallest incorporated cities in Oregon.

Granite covers 0.37 square miles of land at an elevation of 4,672 feet, and it is listed with ZIP code 97877, the Sumpter postal code, since its own post office closed in 1957.

The Ah Hee Diggings, also known as the Chinese Walls, are located about one mile north of the town.

A 1939 interview titled Occupational and Social Life of Granite, recorded by William Haight as part of the Federal Writers' Project, described the town and its surroundings.

In 1942, during World War II, the War Production Board shut down gold mining in the United States through Order No. L-208, deeming gold mining non-essential to the war effort, and since Granite depended so heavily on gold mining, its economy collapsed, with telephone and electric services ceasing after the war.

Granite's population fell from 86 in 1940 to only a handful of residents by 1960, then grew again to 10 by 1990 and 24 in 2000, when telephone service was restored.

As of 2002, Granite had two employers, The Outback, which sold food, fuel, and supplies, and The Lodge, though as of 2025 both had shut down, with The Lodge for sale.