Sunday, June 01, 2008
James Smith is a mite careless with the spell-checker -- the signboard outside his Shaniko jewelry store misspells "bargains" on five separate occasions -- but small-town cautious when it comes to controversy. "I'm a businessman in a town where I cannot possibly take sides," Smith, 72, says. "There are a lot of sides out here, and if I go with one side, I have the rest of the bunch on my backside."
But get the man going on stubbornness and lost chances, "get me riled up," Smith says, "and I get to West Virginia talkin'. And what they say where I come from, the hills of West Virginia, is don't bow your neck. You get your neck bowed, set at an angle, and you can't turn."
If you mean to prosper, Smith figures, you must remain flexible: "You can't get your neck out of shape."
At this lonely bend in the road on Highway 97, just above the plunge down to Antelope and the Big Muddy, necks are bowed big time.
Bob Pamplin is gone. Bob Pamplin has moved on, leaving behind a vacant hotel, a capped well and a lot of stubborn pride. Hard as it may be for the riled-up, frustrated townies to admit, the man's passion for historic preservation and his checkbook were keeping Shaniko tethered to the 21st century, and it's hard to imagine this neck of the central Oregon woods surviving without him.
Not much remains of the railhead that bragged of being the inland wool capital of the world 100 years ago. Earth, wind and fire have all taken whacks at Shaniko. The closest school is in Maupin, the nearest gas pump 28 miles north in Grass Valley. Abandoned junkers, rusting in the weeds, have outnumbered people in town for as long as anyone can remember.
But in the late '90s, Pamplin, who owns the 60,000-acre R2 ranch five miles down the road, came along and saw "a great Western town."
Pamplin -- who still owns the majority of Ross Island, Columbia Empire Farms and a group of Portland media outlets -- is a longtime fan of history and legacy. "You can't create history," he says. "You can't make a Stone Mountain." History is what's left after the heavyweight title bout with time, and he was impressed by what was still standing at this juncture of the high desert.
"Shaniko," Pamplin said, "is the genuine article."
So, he bought it. Or most of it. He bought the Shaniko Hotel, the wool barn, the wagon shed, the RV park, a handful of the downtown shops, and 20 buildable lots.
Over the past 10 years, Pamplin restored much of what he owned. The Robert Pamplin Corp., he said, also donated $215,000 toward other restoration efforts in the town.
He frustrated many of the 32 people who live in Shaniko year-round when he blew up the historic grain elevators and fired many of the old hotel employees, but he generally impressed folks with his commitment to the community and his financial clout.
That clout, however, couldn't deliver Pamplin a reliable water supply. The hotel was still hooked up to Shaniko's century-old system, a wheezing array of surface springs, cisterns and wooden pipes that pumped 80 gallons a minute.
Pamplin needed a steady source of pure water for the hotel, so he spent $40,000 drilling a well on his property over by the wool barn. At 430 feet, the drill team hit an aquifer that cranked out 250 gallons each minute.
But when Pamplin asked the town council for an easement to run a private waterline from the well to his hotel, the request was denied.
"Our charter states everyone inside the city limits needs to be hooked up to city water," said Sandy Cereghino, the Shaniko chamber director.
The solution was fairly obvious: a complete new water system for Shaniko, fueled by Pamplin's well.
"Bob said, 'I'll let you use my well if I can have free water,' which we thought was great," Cereghino said. "He'd already paid to have the well drilled. We thought this was the answer to our prayers."
As Pamplin and the town elders began negotiating over the terms of the deal, money clearly wasn't the issue: Pamplin was already spending $4,000 a month to help Shaniko monitor and operate the old system, a total of $279,000 to date, he says.
Pamplin agreed to give Shaniko, free of charge, a 50-year lease on his well, along with $120,000 in cash so the town could apply to the state for the block grant necessary to fund the new system.
What he wanted in return was the assurance that the hotel's daily need for 5,000 gallons -- a mere 20 minutes of water at that 250 gallons/minute rate -- would take priority over the town's demands, and that he would be indemnified against any claims concerning the quality of the water supply.
When it comes to liability, Pamplin says, "I'm a wonderful target with a bull's-eye on my back."
The principals caucused. The lawyers threw in their two cents' worth. And before you knew it, you had necks bowed all over town.
The locals resent that the town needs Pamplin's money -- "We quit asking for money last summer because we detected a pattern of dependency," Malvin Harding, head of the Shaniko Restoration Group, told The Madras Pioneer newspaper -- and that his money so dramatically reshaped the local economy.
"We don't have a lot of money here," said Debbie Holbrook, the city recorder, "but we invest our lives here. That means as much to us as a check."
And Holbrook said many Shaniko residents were concerned that Pamplin had plans for the town that he wasn't willing to share: "We would have loved to have seen his vision for the town. We might have wanted to share it. But it seemed like he had to have his own thing, and that bugged the rest of us, who work hard together. Rich people don't live in the world we live in."
Pamplin, in turn, grew annoyed when the town told the state it had permission to use his well and his water in a separate application for a new delivery system. "You can't do that," he said. "It upset us no end."
In February, Pamplin's representatives presented their third and final offer to the city. "They decided to go in another direction," said Floyd Aylor, the president of Columbia Empire Farms. "So, that's what we did. We went in another direction."
Pamplin moved out, lock, stock and upscale Western bar. He put all his properties up for sale for $3.1 million. He shut down the hotel, the cafe and the RV park.
He capped the well and closed the corporate checkbook.
"He's punishing us," Sandy Cereghino said. "I don't think he expected us to stand up to him. We're going to survive."
I wonder. Though Shaniko has a number of events on the calendar -- Pioneer Days, Shaniko Days, a holiday bazaar and a music festival -- the price of gas will put a serious crimp on weekend jaunts on Highway 97. Mayor Goldie Roberts, who runs the ice cream parlor, and James Smith both insist this summer will be their last operating in town.
Smith hasn't give up hope that Shaniko may yet be saved. "I hope Mr. Pamplin is as smart as I think he is," he said. "And I think he's a lot smarter than to throw things away. I think the lawyers wrote too much into the agreement. Maybe they can work it out. If they don't keep their necks bowed, they'll be OK.
"The town is damn sure worth it."
But Pamplin isn't optimistic. "I don't know how I could have been more generous, more understanding or more supportive," he says with weary finality. "I'm a great example of why no one wants to move in there. It's their town. They like it the way it is. And they want control. Who in the world would take that on?"
Steve Duin: 503-221-8597 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201
steveduin@news.oregonian.com
http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin
James Smith is a mite careless with the spell-checker -- the signboard outside his Shaniko jewelry store misspells "bargains" on five separate occasions -- but small-town cautious when it comes to controversy. "I'm a businessman in a town where I cannot possibly take sides," Smith, 72, says. "There are a lot of sides out here, and if I go with one side, I have the rest of the bunch on my backside."
But get the man going on stubbornness and lost chances, "get me riled up," Smith says, "and I get to West Virginia talkin'. And what they say where I come from, the hills of West Virginia, is don't bow your neck. You get your neck bowed, set at an angle, and you can't turn."
If you mean to prosper, Smith figures, you must remain flexible: "You can't get your neck out of shape."
At this lonely bend in the road on Highway 97, just above the plunge down to Antelope and the Big Muddy, necks are bowed big time.
Bob Pamplin is gone. Bob Pamplin has moved on, leaving behind a vacant hotel, a capped well and a lot of stubborn pride. Hard as it may be for the riled-up, frustrated townies to admit, the man's passion for historic preservation and his checkbook were keeping Shaniko tethered to the 21st century, and it's hard to imagine this neck of the central Oregon woods surviving without him.
Not much remains of the railhead that bragged of being the inland wool capital of the world 100 years ago. Earth, wind and fire have all taken whacks at Shaniko. The closest school is in Maupin, the nearest gas pump 28 miles north in Grass Valley. Abandoned junkers, rusting in the weeds, have outnumbered people in town for as long as anyone can remember.
But in the late '90s, Pamplin, who owns the 60,000-acre R2 ranch five miles down the road, came along and saw "a great Western town."
Pamplin -- who still owns the majority of Ross Island, Columbia Empire Farms and a group of Portland media outlets -- is a longtime fan of history and legacy. "You can't create history," he says. "You can't make a Stone Mountain." History is what's left after the heavyweight title bout with time, and he was impressed by what was still standing at this juncture of the high desert.
"Shaniko," Pamplin said, "is the genuine article."
So, he bought it. Or most of it. He bought the Shaniko Hotel, the wool barn, the wagon shed, the RV park, a handful of the downtown shops, and 20 buildable lots.
Over the past 10 years, Pamplin restored much of what he owned. The Robert Pamplin Corp., he said, also donated $215,000 toward other restoration efforts in the town.
He frustrated many of the 32 people who live in Shaniko year-round when he blew up the historic grain elevators and fired many of the old hotel employees, but he generally impressed folks with his commitment to the community and his financial clout.
That clout, however, couldn't deliver Pamplin a reliable water supply. The hotel was still hooked up to Shaniko's century-old system, a wheezing array of surface springs, cisterns and wooden pipes that pumped 80 gallons a minute.
Pamplin needed a steady source of pure water for the hotel, so he spent $40,000 drilling a well on his property over by the wool barn. At 430 feet, the drill team hit an aquifer that cranked out 250 gallons each minute.
But when Pamplin asked the town council for an easement to run a private waterline from the well to his hotel, the request was denied.
"Our charter states everyone inside the city limits needs to be hooked up to city water," said Sandy Cereghino, the Shaniko chamber director.
The solution was fairly obvious: a complete new water system for Shaniko, fueled by Pamplin's well.
"Bob said, 'I'll let you use my well if I can have free water,' which we thought was great," Cereghino said. "He'd already paid to have the well drilled. We thought this was the answer to our prayers."
As Pamplin and the town elders began negotiating over the terms of the deal, money clearly wasn't the issue: Pamplin was already spending $4,000 a month to help Shaniko monitor and operate the old system, a total of $279,000 to date, he says.
Pamplin agreed to give Shaniko, free of charge, a 50-year lease on his well, along with $120,000 in cash so the town could apply to the state for the block grant necessary to fund the new system.
What he wanted in return was the assurance that the hotel's daily need for 5,000 gallons -- a mere 20 minutes of water at that 250 gallons/minute rate -- would take priority over the town's demands, and that he would be indemnified against any claims concerning the quality of the water supply.
When it comes to liability, Pamplin says, "I'm a wonderful target with a bull's-eye on my back."
The principals caucused. The lawyers threw in their two cents' worth. And before you knew it, you had necks bowed all over town.
The locals resent that the town needs Pamplin's money -- "We quit asking for money last summer because we detected a pattern of dependency," Malvin Harding, head of the Shaniko Restoration Group, told The Madras Pioneer newspaper -- and that his money so dramatically reshaped the local economy.
"We don't have a lot of money here," said Debbie Holbrook, the city recorder, "but we invest our lives here. That means as much to us as a check."
And Holbrook said many Shaniko residents were concerned that Pamplin had plans for the town that he wasn't willing to share: "We would have loved to have seen his vision for the town. We might have wanted to share it. But it seemed like he had to have his own thing, and that bugged the rest of us, who work hard together. Rich people don't live in the world we live in."
Pamplin, in turn, grew annoyed when the town told the state it had permission to use his well and his water in a separate application for a new delivery system. "You can't do that," he said. "It upset us no end."
In February, Pamplin's representatives presented their third and final offer to the city. "They decided to go in another direction," said Floyd Aylor, the president of Columbia Empire Farms. "So, that's what we did. We went in another direction."
Pamplin moved out, lock, stock and upscale Western bar. He put all his properties up for sale for $3.1 million. He shut down the hotel, the cafe and the RV park.
He capped the well and closed the corporate checkbook.
"He's punishing us," Sandy Cereghino said. "I don't think he expected us to stand up to him. We're going to survive."
I wonder. Though Shaniko has a number of events on the calendar -- Pioneer Days, Shaniko Days, a holiday bazaar and a music festival -- the price of gas will put a serious crimp on weekend jaunts on Highway 97. Mayor Goldie Roberts, who runs the ice cream parlor, and James Smith both insist this summer will be their last operating in town.
Smith hasn't give up hope that Shaniko may yet be saved. "I hope Mr. Pamplin is as smart as I think he is," he said. "And I think he's a lot smarter than to throw things away. I think the lawyers wrote too much into the agreement. Maybe they can work it out. If they don't keep their necks bowed, they'll be OK.
"The town is damn sure worth it."
But Pamplin isn't optimistic. "I don't know how I could have been more generous, more understanding or more supportive," he says with weary finality. "I'm a great example of why no one wants to move in there. It's their town. They like it the way it is. And they want control. Who in the world would take that on?"
Steve Duin: 503-221-8597 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201
steveduin@news.oregonian.com
http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin
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