| The Winebarger House/Central Hotel, located at 112 W. Main in Mitchell, Oregon was built in 1874 -84 and operated by Ozias S. and Kate Evans Boardman. Not much is known about the original owners. They were married in Sacramento California in 1872, and had one son, Vincent E. Boardman. Ozias died May 4, 1904 and Kate died January 1895. Both are buried in the Mitchell Cemetery. When Ozias died, his estate was valued at 1,500; he instructed that after his bills were paid, their son, Vincent was to receive $5.00. Vincent married Vera Waterman in Mitchell on October 4, 1901.
Boardman closed the hotel in 1893, after which it was operated as a feed store when it was purchased by Dr. Jenkins. In 1909 Hiram and Sally Winebarger bought the building for $1,500. Hiram Winebarger, known as Roby, took out a mortgage to buy the Central Hotel from Thomas J. Harper. Roby married Sally Graybeal in 1895 in Tennessee. From Tennessee they moved to North Carolina where three of their children were born; the last two children were born in Oregon. Their names were Stub, Ralph, Hick, Fred and June. Roby originally had a sheep ranch at Rattlesnake but moved to town so the kids could get a better education. The Boardmans ran the Central Hotel here during 1909-1916. In 1927, Roby removed the front foyer of the old hotel. He continued to be a rancher until he her died in the mid 1930s. Local history says that he died on his way home from the Pastime Tavern which was located next store by drowning in Bridge Creek. Sally ran a rooming house/hotel during 1937-1952. Sally lived in the house until her death in 1975 at the age of 97. The house has been empty since 1975. In c.2000 the house was purchased by George Schnee who recently started converting the building into apartments. The city would like to restore the building back to its original design and make it into a museum.
The Oregon State Inventory of Historic Places lists the Winebarger House as a significant resource in Wheeler County in the category of transportation. The list includes: the Prairie City Hotel, 1910, in Prairie City, the Kimberly Road Segment of the Spray-Long Creek Wagon Road, ca. 1890 and the Central Hotel, ca. 1880, in Mitchell. The Central Hotel is included as a significant regional historic resource because of its association with the early transportation routes in the area; the most significant route being the alignment of The Dalles Military Road which ran through Mitchell. It is locally significant for its association with the founding of the City of Mitchell.
Located at the bottom of a narrow canyon on the narrowest part of Bridge Creek, the town of Mitchell was named after John Hipple Mitchell, who became a U. S. Senator for Oregon. The first settlers arrived in the early 1860s and when gold was discovered on Canyon Creek in 1862, people flocked there by the hundreds. Food and supplies were carried in on pack animals and later by freight wagons. The route passed near the site of Antelope, through Burnt Ranch and Mitchell and on to Canyon City. An express route was established in 1864. This same year, Henry Wheeler began a stage line from The Dalles to Canyon City. The stage and passengers were frequently attacked. Wheeler sold his stage line in 1868 and eventually settled near Mitchell. Wheeler County was named in his honor. Because of the need for safe transportation on the route between Gold Hill and The Dalles the U.S. Government improved the trail to allow for easier movement of soldiers to base camps along the way. It was then referred to as The Dalles-Canyon City Military Road.
The Dalles Military Road did not originally go through Mitchell. However, when William W. Johnson, a blacksmith, started a business in 1873 and requested a post office be established in the settlement, the route was changed. His request was granted and he was appointed the first Postmaster of the area and named it Mitchell. A school was built in 1874 and R. Edmundson started the first store in 1875. The Central Hotel became a regular stopping point along this road by 1884. By 1890 there was a church, a livery stable and many saloons as well as the school and hotel. The business buildings and saloons were located along the creek and that part of the town became down as “Tiger Town” because of the many brawls that occurred at the saloons. According to local history there were three shootouts in the downtown, including one in 1904, which was a fight that killed Mr. Pruit, a cattleman, by Tom Dehaven, a sheepherder from Madras. Two other fights occurred in 1923 and 1946 with a result of two more men being killed. Above “Tiger Town” where most of the houses and a church were located on the bluff above the business area was called Piety Hill.
It is somewhat of a miracle that the building has survived because of Mitchell’s location along Bridge Creek. Mitchell has been the site of four disastrous floods and a fire. In 1884, the town of Mitchell experienced its first catastrophe when numerous heavy thunderstorms in the nearby mountain produced a nine-foot wall of water that came over the bluff above the town, carrying boulders and mud into the town causing much damage, six fatalities, and sweeping away most of it buildings. In 1899 another disaster struck, but of a different kind. Mitchell was half destroyed by a fire after which time most of the town was rebuilt at the same location. On July 11, 1904, Mitchell was again almost destroyed by another flood and two lives were taken. Another flood in September of the same year did little damage. On July 13, 1956 the town was again struck by another flood. The creek was usually less than 12 inches (30 cm) deep during July, but minutes after the thunderstorm, a sudden surge of water destroyed or heavily damaged 20 buildings in the city and several bridges over the creek. An observer from the United States Geological Survey estimated that about 4 inches (10 cm) of rain had fallen in about 50 minutes at the storm's center. Total damage from the flood, which also caused extensive damage to crops and roads in a nearby valley, was $709,000. The last flood occurred in 1964; referred to as the Christmas flood, it did not cause any damage to buildings but washed out roads causing isolation of the area for several days. |
