Museums and Old Buildings and Homes

Friday, August 11, 2017

Adler House

The Adler House in Baker City is a beautiful restored home which was built in 1889 and was a Sears catalog kit home.  In 1899 it became the home of Carl Adler, his wife and three children and later was the home of son Leo until his death in 1993.  Leo Adler was a bachelor businessman and philanthropist who willed the house to the Baker County Museum Commission.   After probate of the will in 1994, renovation work began and the home was opened as the Adler House Museum in 1998.  It was not an easy transition as the house was in very poor condition but thanks to four local ladies, grant money, volunteer labor, garage sales, etc. the house was opened and provides a wonderful picture of life in this small town during the early 1900’s.   Below are several pictures from the inside of the home.

Driving around the residential areas turned up these few interesting old Victorian homes.

Heading back toward downtown we stop at the Baker Heritage Museum which is housed in an old 1921 Natatorium and Community Center located on the main street.   If you are not familiar with the word natatorium, it is a building containing a swimming pool usually with locker rooms and in this case steam room, meeting rooms and a maple floored ballroom.  It closed at the beginning of World War II and was used for other purposes and was finally abandoned until 1982 when it became the Oregon Trail Regional Museum which houses beautiful displays of memorabilia, furniture, equipment, photographs, etc. from the local area  We spent about an hour taking in the displays enjoying learning more about Oregon and Baker City. 

School Bus

Wheat Thresher

School Room

Old Laundry Room

Old Washing Machine

Skirt Hoop Form

Downtown Baker City is also full of old historic brick buildings from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s.  A post office was established in 1866 and it was incorporated in 1874.  The city and county were named for U.S. Senator Edward D. Baker, the only sitting senator who was killed leading a charge in Virginia during the Civil War.  In 1900 it was the largest city between Salt Lake City and Portland and a trade center.  The city is situated between the Wallowa Mountains to the east and the Elkhorn Mountains (part of the Blue Mountains) to the west with the Powder River running through the middle of town on its was to the Snake River.

Buildings of note include the Geiser Grand Hotel, circa 1889 ; Baker Tower constructed in 1929 in the Art Deco style ; Bowen Bldg, c.1888 ; Bamburgr Building, c 1888; Mint Building, c.1889 ; and Pythian Castle, c. 1907 and many, many other buildings of the same time period.  

 

Grand Geiser Hotel

Baker Tower

Bowen Building

Bamburger Building

Mint Building

Pythian Castle

We really enjoyed seeing all these old buildings and museums today and look forward to getting out on the road out of town tomorrow to see what the countryside has to offer.    

Underground

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

  

Chinese laundry, Shamrock Card Room, Empire Ice Cream Parlor, Empire Meat Market, Prohibition Card Room, Duck Pin Bowling Alley, opium dens, Stella Darby and her working girls, and tunnels.  This is just a bit of what we saw today taking the Underground Tour here in Pendleton.

Our one and three quarter hour underground tour began above ground watching a video that explained a bit of the history of Pendleton

and the discovery of these underground tunnels and retail businesses that existed and ran about four square blocks  under the city from the river to the railroad tracks.  The underground was discovered when potholes began appearing in the downtown city streets in the 1980’s.  When they tried to fill them in, it was discovered that a whole little city of legal and illegal businesses had existed below ground connected by tunnels.   In the 1800’s there were two Pendleton’s, one above ground and one below.  The entire system no longer exists but a portion of it has been restored and run by a non profit organization.

The long and short of the story is that after the railroad was completed, the Chinese (who had been doing much of the building), were no longer welcome in town and/or on the streets of the city.  To facilitate the curfews and abuse, underground tunnels were built under the city and residences and  businesses of all kinds began to spring up there.  Our tour included only about a block or so of this once extensive system and we had a very knowledgeable and interesting young lady as our guide.

Tunnel

Closeup of wall built by Chinese

Metal tile ceiling found underground

Glass panels in sidewalk above to bring in light

Chinese living quarters underground

Bathroom in underground

Hop Sing Laundry

Shamrock Card Room

Bar in Shamrock Card Room

Pint ice cream carton

Empire Meat Market in the day

Empire Meat Market Underground

Window into an opium den

Finished with the underground, we walk around the front of the building to the “Stairway to Heaven”, 32 stairs that go to the upper floor of the building  to the famous “Cosy Rooms Brothel” run by Madam Stella Darby.  She ran the Brothel from 1928 to 1967 when she retired.  Stella paid her girls more than most working girls earned and taught the girls to budget money and save so they could escape the life as soon as possible.   This was the last brothel to close in the city.  All the others were closed in 1953.  Our tour here included the parlor where gentleman waited to see one of the girls, Stella’s own apartment, the “working rooms”, chapel, kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, and the girls personal bedrooms.  Much of the flooring and wallpaper is original.  

The "Madam"

The Hallway leading to the Working Girl Roooms

Gentlemen's Waiting Parlor

Sofa in the Madam's Private Living Room

The Working Girls Room

Brothel Kitchen

Brothel Laundry Room

Working Girls Private and Personal Bedroom

While the price of the tour was a bit high, $15 each, it was well worth the cost and very interesting.

Tomorrow we leave here for a 95 mile trip south to Baker City, OR where we will spend almost another week seeing the sites.  This is our ninth day of smoky air and we are hoping that we will find cleaner air further south. 

Small Town America in Oregon

Sunday, August 6, 2017

  

The terrible smoke is still with us but we continue with our sightseeing looking through the smoke at the beauty that this area has to offer.  Our drive takes us through golden colored mountains which begin to be interspersed with pine trees as our elevation increases along the way to almost 4,000 feet.  At one point we have a pretty river beside us.

As we travel south we come across the Oregon Trail Visitor Park and decide to stop.  Basically, it is a park set aside to recognize the hardships and courage of the people who walked and rode the Oregon Trail and to help us in this century to recognize and think about their travel and the sacrifices they made.  There is a basic trail usable by those with good legs as well as those who are disabled.  Paintings with quotes from pioneers line this trail while two other trails have markers with information about each stop. 

The first loop helps us to learn the pioneer’s history while we walk in their footsteps seeing what they saw and witnessing their struggle. 

The second loop has six markers and asks us to imagine ourselves walking this 2,286 mile trip to this point.  Quotes give us an insight into the feelings of those on the trail including complaints about their feet hurting, anxieties, the dust and bugs as they walk and a mother’s lament that her husband will not put a marker on their son’s grave because he fears the Indians will defile it.

A covered wagon rests in a clearing showing us how the pioneers traveled and with what.

We returned to our car losing altitude as we descend into the valley where La Grande is located.  The city was originally named Brownsville but was forced to change it because that name was used for a city in another county.   The name La Grande comes from an early French settler who always used the phrase “La Grande” when describing the areas beauty.

As in other small towns we visit we found numerous old buildings some dating to the early part of the last century and others in the 1920’s.  

 An old fire station still in use today, a large Union Pacific Railway Station, and several other old buildings draw our attention as we travel up and down the historic downtown streets on this quiet Sunday afternoon.   Each town is the same but different and each has a story to tell about life in yesteryear and today

We take a scenic route from La Grande to the towns of Cove and Union traveling through very flat farm countryside filled with fields under cultivation some with alfalfa, others with wheat and some with other crops we are unable to identify.  All of this area has a backdrop of golden mountains in the background shrouded by the heavy smoke. 

As we arrive in Union, Ron draws my attention to a deer in the middle of the street.  We quickly stop to take pictures as this antlered deer meanders into the yard of a home followed quickly by two other deer.  What a sight and so unexpected.  You never know when wildlife will cross your path.

Too bad the yard is so junky

In town we come across several old historic buildings including a hotel, old drug store, library (with a cornerstone dating to 1912 and a gift from Andrew Carnegie), an old high school, the Old White Church dating to 1874,  another old fire station converted to another use and this old Coca Cola sign on the side of a building..

Old Fire Station and Masonic Lodge

Old City Hall

 A few old houses capture out attention before we head out of town and 

back to Pendleton on a very windy I-84 which did not seem so going the other way.  Perhaps it wasn’t as this is a divided highway and part of it is found separated completely from the other direction through and around mountain passes.

A nice day and interesting sites in yet some more small towns.   For us, this is what our travels in the RV are all about. 

Ron and I were remembering today that two months ago in early to mid June we were in another part of this state on roads that were not completely open due to snow and here we are today with temperatures in the low to high 90’s.