PENDLETON, OREGON

It is July 30th and we just checked into the Koa in Pendleton, Oregon for 5 nights.  It is a large koa and we have a long pull thru open to the sky for our satellite dish.  We are close to town and Pendleton is one of the original western towns.  It was really the wild wild west. 

It is the 31st and we go into town for a tour of the underground.  Chinese workers came to Oregon during the gold rush days and they lived in underground rooms doing the laundry and such.  They were not treated well and were lied to.  They were told that if they lived there and did all the work they would earn enough money to bring their families to Oregon, which was a lie because not only didn't they make enough money, but were treated really badly and addicted to Opium which kept them docile.  When the town had no more use for them they were put in the mines and then the mines were blown up.  Horrible way to die and these workers did so much, ran all the laundries. 

We also toured a brothel which was in use up to 1953.  It was really nice, but you had to walk up a flight of stairs which had 32 steps, I don't know how the drunken miners made it up.  I was like a large hotel, with sitting rooms, all original.  It was so interesting to see this.  It was a nice tour.

The next day we went to a museum and saw how Pendleton became a large town.  We walked through a caboose of an old train and went into an old cabin.  It was a nice museum and the day we went it was free.  One day a month is a free day and we happened to be there on this day.  We had a nice lunch in town , pulled pork and taco salad and yesterday we went to a Chinese restaurant and they gave us far too much food.  Today we are hanging out at the rig, it is about 90 degrees out and we will go to Safeway later to stock up on groceries.  Tomorrow we will go to the Koa in Cascade Locks, Oregon. 

 

These underground rooms had bars, some were speakeasies

during the time of prohibition and had secret doors and rooms

to hide in during raids

 

 

 

 

 

Pics below of the laundry area

 

 

 

Huge meat market below

 

 

 

Gambling parlors

 

 

 

Both of these pics are of the recreation areas below

 

 

 

Below the brothel sitting room

 

 

Old Chevrolet fire engine outside the museum

 

 

 

Caboose we toured at the Umatilla Museum

 

 

Old barn

 

 

Above is the cabin with double story living quarters