Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Trail,” but also more colorfully, the “Thunderegg Capital of the World.” (Thundereggs
are geologic formations, most of them about the size of baseballs, that look like rocks on
the outside but sliced open reveal intricate patterns of agate.) In Michigan, Onaway is
the state's sturgeon capital, Atlanta is its elk capital, Fairview the wild turkey capital.
I should have made a list of the towns I passed through last time. (I will this time.)
But I remember a lot of them—well, some of them: Wagontire, Oregon, population two,
for instance, on the high desert in the southeast quadrant of the state, maybe eighty-
five miles from the closest town of any size. (That would be Lakeview, to the south,
which is known for its elevation—4,798 feet—as the “Tallest Town in Oregon,” and,
with 7,000-foot promontories outside of town, as a hangout for hang gliders.)
Wagontire had a motel, café, general store, and, across the road, a dirt runway with
a windsock and a sign reading
WAGONTIRE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
. Local recreational pi-
lots would land on the airstrip, taxi across the two-lane highway, and fill up at the gas
station.
A couple named Bill and Olgie Warner owned the whole place when I went through
(they were the population), and after seven years there they were ready to retire, buy an
RV, and visit other places, presumably not as isolated as Wagontire. I was glad to have
met them before they left—they were engaging folks with a good act, affecting an ami-
able, henpecked husband-weary wife routine, and they fed me very well. In 1998, they
were evidently still there. Interviewed by the
Medford (OR) Mail Tribune
, Bill identified
his wife as the mayor and chief of police. “Maybe I'll run next year,” he said.
On the TripAdvisor website, I found a customer's restaurant review of the Wagontire
Café from 2003: “Good home-style food and good service in a dumpy-looking little café
in the middle of nowhere.” And I found another article in the
Mail Tribune
from 2005
that identified a different couple as the town's owners, saying a general spiffing-up of the
place was in the offing. Not too long ago, though, I passed through Wagontire again—in
a car—and everything was closed up. I stopped and poked around. The buildings were
still standing, a little the worse for wear but not too terribly run-down. The airport sign
was still there. No more windsock, alas.
About thirty miles down the road from Wagontire is a town called Riley, whose pop-
ulation in 1993 was six. The guy who owned the café and gas station that made up the
town was actually named Riley—Rich Riley—though he said he hadn't named it after
himself; it already had the name. (I looked it up later. Apparently the name has been
around since the nineteenth century; Amos Riley was a local rancher back then.)
Rich Riley, who looked to be in his thirties, had been a truck driver in a previous
professional incarnation, and he explained to me that passing through town once, years
earlier, on his route, he had stopped to eat and a waitress in the café was rude to him. It
