TURN LEFT AT BAKEOVEN ROAD

A Day Trip To The Desert Takes Travelers On A Journey Through Time

STORY BY DON CAMPBELL

squad of quail and a solo skunk skitter o my home road as I aim east toward a blazing golden-orange, 6:06 a.m. sunrise. It is beautiful and prophetic, somehow. is time of day the world is full of promise and has yet to get crazy. Nothing says summer like a road trip. It is calm, the winds and rain having subsided, and morning is inching its way toward warm. Conditions are perfect.

I want some peace and few people. I want some Oregon history in real time, not photos or exhibits in a museum. I want to drive on quiet roads and avoid tra c. I want to get lost.

Motoring through easy morning tra c on Interstate 84 gets me quickly past e Dalles. I pull o at exit 87 to Highway 197 south toward Dufur, Bend and greater Central Oregon. No tra c. I let my mind wander as I drive through gently rolling wheat elds and vineyards. O in the haze I see Mount Hood. I roll past Dufur and Tygh Valley and drop gently into Maupin, that riverside idyll for shing and rafting.

OUT OF THE HEAT, INTO THE FIRE

Crossing the Deschutes River bridge, I spy my rst turn — Bakeoven Road — just at the south end of the span. I’d learned of this fabled slab of blacktop not long ago and am anxious to put myself on it. Turning left and passing the popular Maupin City Park, and crossing the small bridge over Bakeoven Creek, I begin to wend my way up the aggressively serpentine roadway into high-desert country.

e story goes that Bakeoven was a stage stop along the old e Dalles-Canyon City wagon road, the precursor to the modern-day Bakeoven Road. Gold was discovered in Canyon City in the early 1860s and an intrepid, entrepreneurial e Dalles trader lit out with a pack train of our. Misfortune befell him as he crossed the Deschutes River at a spot now known as Sherar’s Bridge. According to the Central Oregonian, “Indians drove o his horses during the night. He was left stranded until other travelers along the route would come by. Undaunted by the loss of his horses, he constructed a rough adobe and stone bake oven, and made bread, which he sold to prospectors and miners on their way to the gold elds of Canyon City.” e 25-mile climb out of Maupin o ers overwhelming panoramas, giving a hint to those older times. I am on top of the world with grand plateau vistas that stretch to vast horizons in every direction. Sun-baked old homesteads, barns and outbuildings and other historic relics still dot the landscape, irresistible for any photographer or writer.

It grew to be a bustling burg with a stage stop, post o ce and more, and prospered for many years, before roads and routes shifted. e old ranch and outbuildings remain at the original site.

Having said that, on the way up I passed by the Bonneville Power Administration’s Maupin Station, a marvel and major grid point of towering powerlines — and a nod to modern technology and energy. I then quickly found myself at yet another thoroughly modern contrivance: the State of Oregon’s Bakeoven/Daybreak Solar Project, in partnership with Avangrid Renewables, a leading U.S. sustainable energy company. e project, according to the state’s website, is a “solar photovoltaic energy generation facility.”

Good for Oregon.

Moro and the Columbia River crossing of Biggs Junction. But a quaint junction of its own sits here — Shaniko.

History tells us that Shaniko was once a thriving hub of commerce. According to the State of Oregon’s “Oregon Ghost Towns,” Shaniko, formerly known as Cross Hollow, “served as a transit hub for the Columbia Southern Railway. At the time, the town lay at the heart of 20,000 square miles of wool and wheat land. By 1901, Shaniko was Wasco County’s fth largest city. It had the largest wool warehouse in the state, in which four million pounds were stored and sold.”

In 1903, Shaniko earned the nickname “Wool Capital of the World.” at same year the town shipped over one million bushels of wheat and more than 2,000 tons of wool, amounting to some $3 million in wool sales alone. “A year later in 1904, the wool sales were up to $5 million. Shaniko saw con ict in Oregon’s Range Wars, and was one of the rare places where shepherds fended o the cattlemen. … e good times wouldn’t last.”

A change in rail lines disrupted its growth and it faded into history’s mists. Hearty souls made several attempts to revive it, but it remains little more than a quick tourist stop. But a worthy one. e old Shaniko Hotel looks like it only closed yesterday. Still standing is the antiquated city hall, its post o ce, Ravens Nest, is Ole House, various old farmhouses, the quaint (and apparently still functioning) Shaniko Wedding Chapel, rusting antique cars and farm equipment, and so much more.

Chasing Ghosts

I come to the junction of Bakeoven and Highway 97, a major trade route through this part of Oregon. South leads to the heart of Central Oregon — Madras, Redmond, Bend and beyond. North takes you to Grass Valley, e Seven Directions Antique shop and popular ice cream parlor have temporarily relocated next to the hotel, due apparently to an unfortunate semi-truck accident in August 2022. Renovation is underway. About the only things open are the Shaniko General Store and a small gas station. Life is quiet, save for the steady stream of trucks and tra c on the highway.

One curiosity is local radio — yes, you read that right — under the banner of Dead Format Radio, 99.9 on your FM dial, that plays continuous classic rock transmitted in a 10-mile radius. Worth noting too that back near the Bakeoven Road-Highway 97 junction is a tall forest of modern tele- and radio-communication towers,

Your Vacation Just Got A Lot Better

that provides me — a habitual radio-channel scanner during road trips — a plethora of clear radio signals pulled from Yakima, Wash., the entire Columbia River Gorge, deep into Central Oregon, and even KGON from Portland, a ording me every genre of music, talk, religious, and sports programming, including the delightful KWSO 91.9 FM station from Warm Springs. And I have plenty of cell phone service, which will be short-lived.

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Journey Through Time

For many, the tiny hamlet of Antelope plays a signi cant part of Oregon history. Turning left onto Highway 218 out of Shaniko, I snake my way down hairpin turns into this town that was once absorbed by the pious zealotry of Eastern guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his devotees. In 1981, looking to build a peaceful and self-su cient heaven on Earth, the Bhagwan moved his operations from India to Wasco County, setting o a years-long battle with residents. Taking over the 64,281-acre Big Muddy Ranch, the guru established Rajneeshpuram (often known as Rancho Rajneesh), investing over $100 million to raise a self-contained city, building an airstrip, housing, maintenance and recreation facilities, and other infrastructure for some 7,000 of his followers.

To establish voting power, Rajneeshpuram began buying property in Antelope to build a political base, enraging the locals. As well, the group established Zorba the Buddha restaurant and other small businesses while taking over the town council.

Today, Antelope seems frozen like a photograph. A few residents still live there, and barely recognizable remnants of the Bhagwan’s reign still exist. Still, it holds a significant place in history.

Eighty-four miles east of Portland,