Slightly more than 20,000 people have toured the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City since the building reopened on May 24 following a closure that lasted three and a half years.

The visitor numbers between Memorial Day and Labor Day are comparable to figures for the three-month period June 1-Sept. 1 between 2015-19.

The totals for that period:

• 2019: 19,544

• 2018: 18,958

• 2017: 25,093 (the total solar eclipse happened during August)

• 2016: 20,053

• 2015: 17,080

The Interpretive Center, on Flagstaff Hill about 5 miles east of Baker City, has attracted about 2.4 million people since it opened on May 23, 1992.

The Bureau of Land Management operates the center, which includes a variety of exhibits related to the experiences of emigrants on the Oregon Trail during the 19th century. Ruts from the trail still run through the sagebrush south of the center, between it and Highway 86.

The center also has a section devoted to Native American history.

The center’s new director, Lela Blizzard, said this week that visitors include a mixture of local residents, travelers from elsewhere in the region and country and, as in the past, from many foreign countries.

Blizzard said the busiest days were early in the summer, soon after the center reopened. Since then, she said, visitor numbers have “stabilized.”

The center was the county’s most popular attraction in the decade or so after its opening. Visitor numbers totaled 201,000 in 1992 (when it was open for slightly more than half the year), and 1993 was the peak year with 348,000 visitors. That was also the 150th anniversary of the first major emigration on the Oregon Trail. There were multiple events locally related to the milestone, including the convention of the Oregon-California Trails Association.

Annual visitor numbers remained above 117,000 through 1997.

Between 1998 and 2019, the yearly average was about 55,000, ranging from a high of 99,000 in 1998 to a low of 33,000 in 2013.

Pandemic, then renovation

In common with other tourist destinations, visitor numbers plummeted during the pandemic.

The center was closed from March 20, 2020, to June 17, 2020, then reopened for four days per week from June 18, 2020, through Nov. 17, 2020.

During that period the center welcomed 9,500 visitors.

It closed again on Nov. 18, 2020, due to COVID-19, and it didn’t reopen until May 24, 2024.

Initially the closure was due to the pandemic.

But starting in 2022, workers arrived for a $6.5 million project that included replacing the center’s siding, insulation, roof, windows and doors, and upgrading its heating and cooling systems.

The 30,000-square-foot center was the least energy-efficient building the BLM operates, according to an agency assessment in 2018. The center’s electricity bill averaged $10,000 per month.

Winter schedule

The center will be open daily through Oct. 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the exception of Columbus Day, Oct. 14, when the center will be closed.

Starting Oct. 21, the center will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The exceptions are federal holidays, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when the center will be closed.

Blizzard said she hasn’t decided when the center will return to the schedule when it is open every day.

Admission through Oct. 31 is $8 for age 16 and up and $6 for seniors, good for two days with receipt.

Admission from Nov. 1 through March 31 is $5 for ages 16 and up and $4 for seniors, again with two days admission with receipt.

The center also has several free admission days, including Saturday, Sept. 28, which is National Public Lands Day; Saturday, Oct. 26, for the Haunting on the Hill event; and every day that the center is open from Nov. 30 through Dec. 31.

Although the center will be open Thursday through Sunday during December, it will also be open on two Wednesdays, Dec. 11 and 18.