Friday, June 26, 2009

Pendleton, Oregon

Day 35, We drove to Pendelton, Oregon for a one nighter. When we came up over a hill and saw the beautiful fields of yellow (canola), I quickly grabbed my camera. I had never seen such color.











Also while driving we saw a Budweiser Semi Truck driving through a beautiful neighborhood just off the highway. We didn’t know if he was lost or delivering. If he was delivering, what a party that would have been!

We would like to redesign the trip to add a day in Pendelton, Oregon. What a cute little town, with a lot of cowboy history. We started at “Hamley’s,” located right on Main Street.

I didn’t have a clue as to what it was. Boy did I get a cowboy lesson! We went in the store to find that they hand make saddles and that anybody who is anybody orders their saddle from Hamley’s. They sell cowboy hats, belts, clothing, leather items, robes.
























They had a handmade rawhide “lasso” robe that is selling for $1,800!!!!!! I thought my son, Robby, had an expensive saddle, but these saddles start at $5,000 and go up to $50,000. Needless to say, we just looked.

Out from nowhere came a salesman, Parley Pierce, who asked if he could help us. We started talking to him and he told us the story of the building. The building was the original building from when the company started 107 years ago as a family business. All the famous cowboys you’ve read and heard about have been patrons of this store, Wild Bill, John Wayne, all the professional rodeo cowboys, even Paul McCartney is one of their present patrons. As we walked around the store, Parley stayed with us and we kept wondering why he was following us. Certainly he knew we weren’t going to buy anything, then we thought maybe he was making sure we didn’t steal anything…… But we concluded he enjoyed pointing out all the unique items in the store and telling us the history behind them. THEN WE FOUND OUT, he was not a sales clerk, he was one of the OWNERS!!!! How lucky we were to have run into him. We took a gazillion pictures and after spending too much time in the store, told him we had to leave because we wanted to check out the Hamley’s Steakhouse. He told us he would take be happy to give us a tour of the back way over to the steakhouse. It was unbelievable!

He took us to a huge room upstairs decorated like an old time saloon, which they use for parties and what a beautiful HUGE bar!










The bar was purchased from a saloon in Montana where they had a sign, DO NOT CARVE IN THE BAR. Well, a cowboy walked in and stuck his knife right into the top of the bar. The bartender shot and killed him. The bar has been refinished but you can still see the blood spot. The chairs and tables in this room are all from different saloons in the West..


They also acquired the backdrop from the movie Far And Away starring Tom Cruise
In the cattlemen’s club room, they have an apothecary that was made in the late 1800s in Montana, which they found in Belgium! They bought it and had it shipped back to Pendleton.
It is huge. It was the whole length of the wall and then some.
These rooms were upstairs in the building so we worked our way over to the Steakhouse.
















Downstairs in the restaurant was a saddle handmade by Hanley’s and handpainted by a 90 year old nun in 1959.




















The bank front was the actual bank front which was robbed by Butch Cassidy.

The liquor cabinet is located in the restaurant area. It came with the upstairs famous bar, but was too big to put upstairs.
The ceiling of the restaurant actually won in a ceiling contest! We had never heard of such a thing, and neither had the owners. One of their customers came in, took a picture of the ceiling and entered it into the contest. It’s all stamped tin. The lights hanging from the ceiling were bought from the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas. We were amazed at all the items that the owners have found to add to their collection in their building which makes it so unique.











Again, I have to say, we were so lucky to meet Parley and receive a personal tour. He is a wealth of information about the entire area.

We also found that there are underground tunnels which housed businesses back in the day. We were told that they are better than the tunnels in Seattle. The woman who bought the candy store said she owned the store for 1 year before she found there was a secret door in the basement which led to a tunnel that goes all the way to the state prison! Supposedly the tunnels were built so that famous and political figures could use the tunnels to secretly visit the brothels.

After our trip meeting with our guests, we hopped back into the car to have dinner at Hamley’s Steakhouse. Their food was delicious!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for stopping by. I am now posting on wordpress at:
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