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Hot Lake, Oregon

human settlement in Oregon, United States of America

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ5910095 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hot Lake is an unincorporated community in Union County, Oregon, United States. Hot Lake has an elevation of 2,704 feet (824 m). It is about 10 miles (16 km) east of La Grande, and 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Union.

The first Europeans to see Hot Lake were the 32 members of an expedition under W. Price Hunt, who entered the Grande Ronde Valley on January 1, 1812, on their way to the mouth of the Columbia River. On August 7 of that year, Robert Stuart made the first written notation of the place while returning from the Columbia River. Hot Lake became a resting place for travelers, especially when settlers began traversing through the valley on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. The first hotel was built at Hot Lake in 1864 by Samuel F. Newhard, and a post office was established in 1883. In 1884, the railroad was built through the area. The Hot Lake Resort was built in 1906. The resort began to decline in the 1930s, as a result of the death of its director since 1917, Dr.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hot Lake, Oregon” as human settlement in Oregon, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1812, 1864, 1883, 1884—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Lake, Oregon and human can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as human settlement in Oregon, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5910095. VIAF identifies the subject as 137476769. The Library of Congress control number is no00027292. Authority coordinates are 45.245, -117.958. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1812, 1864, 1883 and 1884.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hot Lake, Oregon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hot Lake, Oregon primary sources, Hot Lake, Oregon archive and Lake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hot Lake, Oregon”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hot Lake, Oregon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.