Riverside Schoolhouse Bed & Breakfast and the Ghost Town of Whitney Oregon
This is part 6 of our trip through eastern Oregon. If you would like to start at the beginning in the Alvord desert click here.
We spent the day exploring the John Day Fossil Beds and the Painted Hills. Our next accommodation was not far away as it was located back near Prairie City and the town of John Day. It is an old converted school house.
The school house is located out in the country surrounded by farm lands and is very peaceful. The inside still has the old chalk boards and has a very country cabin feel to it.
I can think of quite a few unique lodging options in the state of Oregon. There is the Tree House Treesort in southern Oregon which is a must visit and one of our favorite places to stay in the state. In Astoria on the north coast is the Cannery Pier Hotel, an old converted cannery building sitting on the docks which feels like a cruise ship from your bedroom and they even publish a ship report daily alerting guests when to watch for the large cargo ships coming into port. So this is another special place to stay and we had the entire school house to ourselves.
The above video shows the interior of the school house, the photos I took are not very good so you’ll need to watch the video, sorry. Out back there is a porch which makes a very nice place to sit and imagine life back in the day as a cattle rancher.
The Riverside School House is a B&B and the breakfast is well worth mentioning. The owner delivered our breakfast in the morning and it was delicious. French toast made with croissants and topped with strawberries with locally made sausage accompanied by juice, coffee and tea. I again took no pictures, probably because I was too excited and hungry but the above video shows it off quite well.
It was time to leave and continue our journey through eastern Oregon again going north this times towards Union City.
There is another unique tourism draw in eastern Oregon and that is ghost towns. We came upon the abandoned town of Whitney, Oregon.
The town of Whitney was occupied primarily by workers of the local saw mill, as well as several employees of the railroad and was founded in 1900.
Logging Railroads were built out of Whitney in all directions during the next 20 years. Nibley Lumber Company set up a large Sawmill south of town in 1911 as loggers “daylighted” the giant stands of yellow pine nearby. At one time, over 150 people called Whitney their home. When the railway was abandoned in 1947, the town closed down.
Tonight we would make it to the town of Union City and the Union City Hotel.
