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more photosThe resurrected 1889 Geiser Grand hotel is Baker City's finest, despite its rumored ghosts.
John Gottberg Anderson / For The Bulletin
Historic Baker City
The past lives on in this Eastern Oregon town
By John Gottberg Anderson / For The Bulletin
Published: March 04. 2007 4:00AM PSTBaker City - High on a hilltop, about eight miles outside of this Eastern Oregon town, the tall man was gesturing eastward across a sagebrush-covered desert.
"Imagine it's the 1840s, and you've just walked 1,700 miles," he said, "much of it like this. And imagine that you come over this rise and see ... this."
Gary Koy turned and pointed westward. The Powder River Valley spread out at our feet, its fields ideal for crops and livestock. Just beyond, pine-cloaked Elkhorn Ridge rose dramatically to above 9,000 feet.
"All of a sudden," Koy said, "you know you've arrived in Oregon. Even though you still have to get around these Blue Mountains - the most challenging on the entire Oregon Trail, by the way - you've achieved a major turning point in your journey."
Koy is the assistant director of the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, a Bureau of Land Management-administered museum. It's an impressive facility, featuring a life-size diorama of trail life and numerous other exhibits, including three separate video presentations and a replica wagon encampment. More than four miles of interpretive trails crisscross a section of original Oregon Trail wagon ruts. Nearby are remnants of an 1896 gold mine, and living-history re-enactments are regularly scheduled, especially in summer.
Indeed, the Baker City area is immersed in history, from its downtown streets to the abandoned mining communities on its fringes. The richest community in the state at the turn of the 20th century, its heritage has recently been rediscovered by outside investors, including many from Central Oregon, who foresee that its expansive national historic district may eventually lead the town into a growth spurt to rival what Bend has seen in the past 20 years.
Doing the time warp
For now, Baker City has a population of about 10,000 people. It's been sitting at that level for decades. Some 230 miles east of Bend on Interstate 80, it seems to exist in a time warp. First settled during the Civil War era of the 1860s, it boomed with major gold strikes in the 1890s, and has persisted as a ranching center. Ghosts are rumored to run rampant in the restored Geiser Grand Hotel. Most cell phone services are unavailable. The "first-run" cinema shows movies already available at Blockbuster.
"And have you got used to our drivers?" asked Stephen White, who relocated from Bend to Baker City with his wife, Kina, last summer.
"You mean, that everyone drives at least 10 miles per hour under the speed limit?" I responded.
"That's it, exactly!" White shot back.
Minor details such as those haven't stopped people like White - known to legions of Bend tipplers as "Whitey" during his eight years as a bartender at J.C.'s, Legends and other establishments - from investing their fortunes and futures in Baker City. One night over beers and pasta at Barley Brown's Brew Pub, which doubles as Baker City's principal fine-dining restaurant and the hub of its nightlife, he described why he's glad he made the move.
"Our mortgage here is half what we were paying in Bend," White said of his 2,000-square-foot home just four blocks off Main Street. "In May, we are opening a restaurant, Paisano's Pizzeria. We have made more friends here, and go to more dinner parties, than we ever did in our years in Bend." What's more, there are as many opportunities for four-seasons outdoor recreation in Baker City as there are in Bend, said White, an avid snowboarder (See accompanying story on Page D7).
Long-term potential
Bend resident Scott Ramsay, owner of the Casarama home-decor and antiques store on Bend's North Division Street, is another person who sees long-term potential in a Baker City investment. He and his wife, Gitta, bought a historic brick building on a downtown street corner in the fall of 2004 and set to work rehabilitating it according to photos they found at the local historical society archives.
"Baker," as it was then known (the "City" designation was added in the late '70s), seemed to have forgotten its history until a student intern for a state agency in 1977 documented the extent of the town's historic district, finding 110 significant buildings still intact from the gold-rush boom days of 1880 to 1910. Many were built of brick, many others of locally quarried volcanic tuff.
"Baker City was one of the only towns in Oregon to have that kind of classic architecture," he added. "And it was affordable! Many buildings had been boarded up since the 1940s or '50s. The owners never put any money into them; they just rented out the ground levels and hung onto the buildings."
Ramsay credited the city with providing support for his venture. "Baker City is super pro-growth," he said. "Their economic-development department embraces you and helps to find you financing." Investors have now discovered Baker City, however, and commercial real-estate prices have shot up dramatically in the past two years, Ramsay said.
"The ultimate antique is to own a building and to restore it," he said. "We replaced the stamped-tin ceiling and repaired the brick walls (of the building we purchased), and we have been creating a loft-like apartment upstairs ... where prostitutes used to work. Baker City had a rather sordid past. It seems that all of these historic buildings had at least some space devoted to gambling or prostitution."
Geiser and its ghosts
The Ramsays' building, known as The Mint, is at the corner of Main and Valley streets. The finished ground-floor retail space has been rented out to D'ja Vu Collectibles. That's only one of several antique stores in downtown Baker City. But none has the same historic appeal as the Geiser Grand Hotel.
Built in 1889, the Geiser was the finest inn between Salt Lake City and Seattle. A three-story Italianate Renaissance Revival building with a crowning cupola clock tower, it boasted electricity and the third elevator west of the Mississippi River (the others were in Aspen and San Diego). Miners, cattle barons, politicians and international travelers mingled beneath the stained-glass ceiling of its Palm Court.
Time took its toll on the Geiser. It closed in the summer of 1968 after housing Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and other cast members of "Paint Your Wagon," which was largely filmed in this area. The building was almost replaced by a parking lot. But 25 years later, new owners began a painstaking restoration. It took five years and more than $7 million, but when completed, the Geiser Grand received special acclaim from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today it is the gem of Baker City, a fine 30-room hotel with every modern amenity.
And then there are the ghosts. As I dined at the hotel one night, I jokingly said to the young woman who served me: "Tell me about the ghosts."
"Which ones?" she replied calmly, and proceeded to tell me about a woman often seen on a balcony in a flowing blue Victorian dress. "She apparently hung herself after her cowboy boyfriend was shot," my server nonchalantly explained. She also made reference to a "headless ghost" without providing details.
A sense of history
You can pick up brochures directing you on a pair of Historic Baker City Walking Tours from the Baker County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau. Townspeople are excited that the Crossroads Art Center will move into the former Carnegie Library building, at 2020 Auburn Ave., later in 2007.
But apart from walking down Main Street and through adjacent residential neighborhoods, the best place to get a sense of Baker City's rich history is at the Oregon Trail Regional Museum. Housed in a spacious building that once held a public swimming pool, its highlights include a re-creation of Main Street, circa 1900, and one of the finest collections of rocks, minerals and fossils in the United States.
The history buff with a little extra time will want to make a side trip to the historic mining town of Sumpter, 30 miles southwest of Baker City in the foothills of the Elkhorns. There are plenty of ghost towns in this region; Sumpter, with a permanent population of 170, doesn't quite qualify.
Founded on a gold-discovery site in 1862, Sumpter had more than 3,000 people and 81 business in 1900. Today it is home to the Sumpter Valley Railroad, an 1890 narrow-gauge steam train that operates on a seven-mile track from May through September, and the Sumpter Valley Dredge, a five-story that extracted $4.5 million in gold from the river valley until it was permanently retired in 1954. A unique wetland, designated as a state heritage area, now exists atop what was once an environmental disaster.
Visiting Baker City
EXPENSES
* Gas (494 miles @ $2.50/gallon) - $49.40
* Lodging, Geiser Grand Hotel (2 nights) - $192.24
* Dinner, Barley Brown's Brew Pub - $34.25
* Breakfast, Chameleon Cafe - $7.75
* Lunch, Sundance Inn - $11
* Dinner, Geiser Grand Hotel - $27.95
* Breakfast, Mad Matilda's - $5.50
* Admission, Oregon Trail Interpretive Center - $3
* Skiing (half-price), Anthony Lakes - $16
TOTAL - $347.09
IF YOU GO
Information
* Baker City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau: 490 Campbell St., Baker City; 541-523-5855; www.visitbaker.com
* Historic Baker City Inc.: Basche-Sage Mall, 2101 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-5442; www.historic bakercity.com
Lodging
* Best Western Sunridge Inn: 1 Sunridge Lane at Campbell Street, Baker City; 541-523-6444; www.sunridgeinn.com. Rates from $71
* Geiser Grand Hotel: 1996 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-1889; www.geisergrand.com. Rates from $89
* Oregon Trail Motel: 211 Bridge St., Baker City; 541-523-5844. Rates from $32
Restaurants
* Barley Bob's Brew Pub: 2190 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-4266
* The Chameleon Cafe: 1825 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-7977
* Mad Matilda's: 1917 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-4588
* Paisano's Pizzeria (open May 1): 2940 10th St., Baker City
* Prospectors Chocolate Co. & Bistro: 1917 Court Ave., Baker City; 541-523-9211
Attractions
* Crossroads Art Center: 1901 Main St., Baker City; 541-523-5369; www.crossroads-arts.org
* D'ja Vu Collectibles: 1798 Main St., Baker City; 541- 523-5270
* National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center: Flagstaff Hill, State Highway 86; 541-523-1843; www.oregontrail.blm.gov
* Oregon Trail Regional Museum: 2480 Grove St. at Campbell Street, Baker City; 541-523-9308; www.bakercounty.org
* Historic Sumpter: Sumpter, State Highway 220; 541-894-2314; www.historic sumpter.com
John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com.
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