Sparta is an unincorporated

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 community in Baker County

Baker County, Oregon

Baker County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is included in the 8 county definition of Eastern Oregon. It is named for Edward Dickinson Baker, a senator from Oregon who was killed at Ball's Bluff, a battle of the Civil War in Virginia in 1861. It was split from the eastern part...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, United States. It was named for Sparta, Illinois

Sparta, Illinois

Sparta is a city in Randolph County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,486 at the 2000 census.The city was the principal filming location for the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night.-Geography:Sparta is located at ....

 by William H. Packwood

William H. Packwood

William Henderson Packwood , was an American politician who served at the Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857. A United States Army veteran from the state of Illinois, he was also a school superintendent and acquaintance of President Abraham Lincoln...

, a prominent Oregon pioneer

American pioneer

American pioneers are any of the people in American history who migrated west to join in settling and developing new areas. The term especially refers to those who were going to settle any territory which had previously not been settled or developed by European or American society, although the...

 who visited the gold diggings at the Powder River

Powder River (Oregon)

The Powder River is a tributary of the Snake River, approximately long, in northeast Oregon in the United States. It drains an area of the Columbia Plateau on the eastern side of the Blue Mountains...

 there in 1871.

By 1873, the population was 300 and the town had a general store, a hotel, a meat market, and a brewery; food came from the nearby Eagle Valley.

The town was plat

Plat

A plat in the U.S. is a map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. Other English-speaking countries generally call such documents a cadastral map or plan....

ted in 1872, and the post office was established in 1872 and ran until 1952. The post office was originally named "Gem" in 1871 and was moved about a mile east when it was renamed Sparta to match the established community. The locale was also known as "Eagle City".

External links

• Historic image of Sparta from Salem Public Library

44.8709927°N 117.3240768°W