A Pandemic Visit to a Ghost Town
I've wanted to visit Shaniko for at least a decade and I don't know why I waited so long. In the early months of the covid shutdown, after the novelty wore off and it started getting depressing, I talked my friend into driving out there. It's 128 miles each way, so it's a great day trip, and the gorgeous drive through the Painted Hills will make you promise to return.
Shaniko is "Oregon's Best Known Ghost Town" and one of the most complete and best preserved. While not technically a ghost town (37 people still live there), it is a far cry from the booming wool town it once was. It's easy to forget that half of Oregon is desert, but driving down Highway 97 you know you're in one. Then this little collection of buildings sneaks up on you.
We drove right into the center of town and immediately saw nothing was open, which we expected since the whole state was staying at home. We parked right by the Shaniko Hotel, built in 1902, which was before The Wright Brothers flew, so really fucking old. Built by the railroad of the same name, it was originally called the Columbia Southern Hotel. It's in near perfect condition, it's obviously been kept up and/or restored. The best I can tell, it's been 30 years since it was functional. Its owner got pissed off at the City Council, yes, of a ghost town, over a land permit, so he closed up shop and capped the town's water supply because it's on his land. Just to be a dick.
Originally named the Columbia Southern Hotel
Credit: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives
There was obviously once an ice cream store here, which made me sad to look at. There are some houses scattered amongst these old buildings and it's sometimes difficult to tell if you're trespassing or not. We saw the old City Hall and I wondered if this is where the fateful meeting that led to the hotel closing happened here. Did he storm out those barn doors with a whinny? In previous summers, the City Hall appears to also house an art gallery, the fire brigade, and....a CASKETERIA?! You know as much as I do about that.
We found the jail tucked away on the side of one of the buildings and, curious, I tried the handle and it opened! We carefully stepped inside and looked around. It was obviously meant to be seen, there were some pictures and historical articles on the wall, but we didn't know if it was meant to be left unlocked. So we respectfully looked around and left pretty quickly. We found out that the Shaniko museum was also unlocked so maybe they're leaving it all unlocked for tourists? Or is this one of those mythical places where they never lock their doors? We read up on the town's history, which is pretty fascinating but also very common. A booming old west town that dried up when the new railways bypassed it. We then noticed that the museum doubled as a thrift store and it had a lot of bibles for sale.
We looked in all the windows we could, there were many surprising and interesting things to look at. A dog started following us and even played fetch with my friend. We came across two guys working on a sizeable commercial truck who seemed to know him and didn't mind that he was hanging out with us.
All in all, we spent the better part of an hour walking around and looking at everything. When we were ready to go, I was praying to the bathroom gods that the public toilets were unlocked and, thank you Shaniko, they were and they were very clean. Phew!
As we pulled out of town, we noticed there was actually ONE store open! The General Store right by the highway was open! We both wanted to go in but we were all being extra covid careful in those days so we didn't. We bid Shaniko goodbye and returned to the desert.
BUT WAIT! We weren't quite done yet so we headed south to Antelope, a very short drive that we couldn't pass up. The Netflix mini-series "Wild, Wild Country" had recently premiered and we were very curious to see what we could see. We didn't take any pictures as we drove through Antelope, we figured the residents were probably sick of that. Antelope is a blink-or-you'll-miss-it kind of place. We followed our GPS toward the old Rajneesh camp, the asphalt turned to gravel, our GPS signal was lost, signs said "Private Property," and we came to a fork in the road so we stopped. Out of nowhere, a pickup truck showed up and one of the two DudeBros got out and asked if we needed any help. We said no and they went on their way. We decided they were probably going toward the camp so after waiting a sufficient time, we went the same way.
Long story short, we did find the camp and drove right in. It's a fascinating Jesus compound that looks in every way that you might imagine. It's big. Really, really big. And so cool to see the places that Bagwan drove in all his fancy cars. It was fun to play "do you think that's original" at everything. We didn't stay long at all, we really just drove into the parking in the middle of the compound then turned around and left. We could see a security office had been alerted to our presence and they were mobilizing. So we got the hell out of there. I'm not putting any pictures up because I don't want to encourage people to trespass. But there's literally nothing stopping you….
