Oregon ghost town’s wedding chapel will get new life as a nonprofit
In the summer months, the doors to the old Shaniko Wedding Chapel are nearly always open and the stray tourist or traveler is welcome to peek in and explore the tiny, one-room wooden building. There’s a sense that the old chapel, tucked away in the ghost town of Shaniko in south Wasco County, is abandoned. But that’s far from true. Its caretakers, just around the corner at the Outpost Gas Station, have created a nonprofit aimed at restoring the building.
As owners of the town’s only gas station (and the only place for fuel along the 75 miles of U.S. 97 between Moro and Madras), they’re the unofficial greeters for travelers who stop in Shaniko. The Outpost doesn’t have a store, but it does have a sort of community living room where drivers and cyclists can rest over free cold drinks and Otter pops in the summer, or warm up around the pellet stove in the winter. Brown and Haskett sometimes invite travelers to their home for dinner or have impromptu jam sessions with passing musicians.
Shaniko has a population of about 23 people, but in its heyday — about 110 years ago — some 600 people lived there. Today, Brown calls Shaniko a “living ghost town,” and visitors like to stop by to wander the remaining block of Old West buildings that make up the town today. The couple lives in Shaniko half the year and spends the winter months in Roanoke, Virginia. There, they play in a four-piece bluegrass band named after the man who sold them the Shaniko gas station: Leon Whistler. “Everybody who comes to live here is eclectic, and they bring this flair to Shaniko,” Brown said. “They’ve got their own history, and they left wherever they lived for a reason. It really adds to the renaissance element of Shaniko.
”Earlier this month, the Shaniko Hotel reopened for the first time since 2008, bringing a renewed sense of promise to the tiny community. “When we first came here, the town was, I’m not going to say dead, but it was much more ‘ghosty’ than it is now,” Haskett said. “And, when we opened the gas station, people started stopping. And once people stop, they started to look around, and there started to be more people wandering about.”
Brown and Haskett hope that sense of promise extends to the Shaniko Wedding Chapel, which they bought not long after they opened the gas station. The old chapel started its life in 1897 as a schoolhouse halfway between Shaniko and Maupin. Brown said several local ranchers had pooled their money to build the school for their children and hire a 16-year-old teacher from The Dalles. In the 1960s, local resident Jim Hogan bought the building and had it trucked into Shaniko, where he transformed it into a chapel and officiated over weddings.
The building’s design, with a bell and small steeple, seemed to work just as well for a church as it had for a school. After Hogan’s death in 2000, his wife maintained the property. “Tourists were able to come in, visitors were able to look around, but it hadn’t been used in a decade or two,” Brown said. When they bought the chapel in 2019, Brown and Haskett brought back the weddings; they’re both ordained and can preside over ceremonies. Couples can rent out the chapel starting at $500. Rustic would be a generous way of describing the facilities. There’s no electricity, plumbing, heat or water. The closest public bathrooms are two blocks away next to City Hall, though there’s a vintage Shasta trailer for couples to use.
For those looking for a summer, pioneer-style wedding, the place certainly has character. It’s leaning a little bit, it needs a new roof,” Haskett said. “We’re trying to revitalize it, and that’s why we put it in the nonprofit.” Last December, the couple formed a nonprofit, the Shaniko Music Sanctuary, to raise funds for repair and preservation of the little one-room chapel. The nonprofit board hopes to raise $20,000 to make repairs, starting with the foundation and roof. They’d like the chapel to be able to host church services, public gatherings, performances and music camps.
“It’s a wonderful space,” Haskett said of the chapel. “It sort of defines the area, and we want this to be something that can be enjoyed by the tourists and the locals.” If you go: The Tygh Valley Bluegrass Jamboree is in late September each year at the Wasco County Fairgrounds. Tickets for the entire weekend are $50. For more information, visit tyghvalleybluegrass.com.
For more information on supporting the restoration of the chapel, visit shanikomusicsanctuary.com.
Updated: Aug. 28, 2023, 8:52 p.m. Published: Aug. 24, 2023, 8:40 a.m.
