Mail order house
Don Fischer
2/6/09 9:17am
I went out to a local ranch yesterday and got some photo's of a homestead from the late 1800's. The guy that built the house was the Great Grandfather of the present owner. The present owner's Grandfather and Father were born in the house.
The sister runs our post office and I stopped and talked to her and she told me the house was a mail order house from a business like Montgomery Wards! The house was shipped by rail to Shaniko, Ore, which was a very busy town back then. It was the sheep shipping center of the world then. Once in Shaniko, the house was picked up with a wagon and team of horses and hauled to it's present location.
Hauling the house was no small task. The hill down to Antelope was a steep winding dirt road. Today that road has been moved a bit so it's a steep winding paved road! Once in Antelope, the house went about eight miles out of town, all on dirt roads. To get into it yesterday, we had to go in off of a gravel road 1 1/2 miles up a 4 wd dirt road. beautiful trip in.
I found a place I'd love to live, absolutely beautiful in there. I didn't know they ever made mail order houses but I guess the lumber had to come from somewhere. The pile of rubble in the first photo is all that remains of the barn and the white thing is the old wood cook stove.
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The sister runs our post office and I stopped and talked to her and she told me the house was a mail order house from a business like Montgomery Wards! The house was shipped by rail to Shaniko, Ore, which was a very busy town back then. It was the sheep shipping center of the world then. Once in Shaniko, the house was picked up with a wagon and team of horses and hauled to it's present location.
Hauling the house was no small task. The hill down to Antelope was a steep winding dirt road. Today that road has been moved a bit so it's a steep winding paved road! Once in Antelope, the house went about eight miles out of town, all on dirt roads. To get into it yesterday, we had to go in off of a gravel road 1 1/2 miles up a 4 wd dirt road. beautiful trip in.
I found a place I'd love to live, absolutely beautiful in there. I didn't know they ever made mail order houses but I guess the lumber had to come from somewhere. The pile of rubble in the first photo is all that remains of the barn and the white thing is the old wood cook stove.
5,031
FUNNY: i was thinking while reading the part about it being a long winding road to antelope " man they didn't fix it much, that road is still very windy", then the next line-- a long winding paved road lol
very cool pics, thanks for sharing that part of oregon has a long history