99 haunted destinations cataloged across Oregon, spanning 31 counties. The collection features haunted hotel, museum, and other dark tourism site — every listing verified with family ratings, accessibility info, and practical visit logistics.
Newport, OR
Yaquina Bay Lighthouse was lit on November 3, 1871 on the north shore of Yaquina Bay near Newport, Oregon. It served as an active navigational aid for only three years before being decommissioned in October 1874 after the larger Yaquina Head Light came online. The structure is the only surviving wooden lighthouse in Oregon and the only U.S. lighthouse with its original keeper's quarters still attached.
Yachats, OR
Heceta Head Lighthouse at 92072 US-101 South was completed in 1894, lit on March 30 of that year, and has operated continuously since as a critical navigation aid on the central Oregon Coast. The keeper's cottage — the assistant lightkeeper's quarters, dating to the same period — is one of the last intact examples of its type on the Pacific Coast and has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1994. The lighthouse is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.
Astoria, OR
Astoria's downtown sits atop a network of subterranean voids, basements, and reinforced passages that originated in the late 19th century as practical infrastructure (basement-to-basement passages, smuggling chambers, opium dens) and acquired enduring association with the city's shanghaiing era. The Old Astoria Underground Tour operates rehabilitated sections of the network as a guided historical tour from 1125 Marine Drive. The tunnel network itself has no single street address; the tour starting point on Marine Drive is the documented public access point.
Baker City, OR
The Geiser Grand opened in 1889 as the Hotel Warshauer during Baker City's gold-mining boom, was renamed for owner Albert Geiser in 1902, closed in 1968, and reopened in 1993 after a quarter-century vacancy and a National Trust-recognized restoration.
Portland, OR
The cemetery began with the 1846 burial of pioneer Emmor Stephens on a family farm in what is now southeast Portland. In 1854 Colburn Barrell bought the land and dedicated 10 acres as 'Mount Crawford,' named after his business partner Crawford Dobbins, who died with 23 others when the steamboat Gazelle exploded at Canemah that April. Later renamed Lone Fir, the 30-acre site holds about 25,000 burials including 16 Portland mayors and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. It is now operated by Metro.
Astoria, OR
The Captain George Flavel House was completed in 1885 at 441 8th Street in Astoria as the retirement home of Captain George Flavel (1823-1893), a Columbia River bar pilot and early Oregon millionaire. Designed by German-born architect Carl W. Leick, the 11,600-square-foot Queen Anne mansion occupies a full city block and has been operated as a house museum by the Clatsop County Historical Society since 1951. The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Portland, OR
BeerQuest Walking Tours is a Portland beer-tour company running an award-winning Haunted Pub Tour through the Old Town/Chinatown district, centered on the historic Shanghai Tunnels.
Portland, OR
Norwegian immigrant Simon Benson — Portland lumber baron, philanthropist, and donor of the city's iconic Benson Bubblers drinking fountains — opened the 14-story French Second Empire hotel at SW Broadway and Oak on March 4, 1913, timed to coincide with President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Designed by Portland firm Doyle, Patterson & Beach, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Portland, OR
Cathedral Park in Portland's St. Johns neighborhood occupies the riverbank beneath the 1931 St. Johns Bridge, whose Gothic pointed arches gave both the park and its name their character. In August 1949, 15-year-old Thelma Taylor was abducted and murdered near this site. The land was acquired by the city in 1968 and formally opened as a public park on May 3, 1980.
Portland, OR
Montrose Ringler commissioned Robert F. Tegan to design the building, which was constructed in 1913-1914 and opened in early 1914 as Ringler's Cotillion Hall. The Romanesque Revival structure is best known for its third-floor ballroom and a mechanical 'floating' dance floor mounted on ball-bearings. Added to the National Register in 1979 and restored by McMenamins in 1997.
Portland, OR
George Heathman built the 10-story New Heathman Hotel in 1927 at SW Broadway and Salmon on what was then Portland's 'Great White Way' entertainment corridor. Designed by Portland firm DeYoung & Roald in the Jacobean Revival style, the concrete-and-brick structure was Portland's largest construction project to date and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Portland, OR
Ghost City Tours is a multi-city ghost-walk operator running nightly walking tours since 2012. The Portland program consists of three distinct products: the family-friendly Ghostly Shadows of Portland Tour, the 16+ Dark Below Ghost Tour, and the 21+ Portland Haunted Pub Crawl, all routed through Old Town Portland and the historic Skidmore District.
Portland, OR
The Hollywood Theatre opened July 17, 1926 as a 1,500-seat vaudeville-and-silent-film palace designed by Bennes & Herzog in Spanish Colonial Revival (exterior) and Roman classical (interior) styles. The surrounding Hollywood District takes its name from the theater. Listed on the National Register in 1983, it has operated as a nonprofit cinema by Film Action Oregon since 1997.
Portland, OR
Portland lawyer and former U.S. Congressman Rufus Mallory commissioned the Classical Revival-style hotel, which opened in 1912 as the Mallory Hotel. Mallory died in 1914, leaving his wife — author, publisher, and prominent spiritualist Lucy A. Rose Mallory — as sole owner until her death in 1920. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and reopened as Hotel deLuxe the same year.
Portland, OR
The Wilcox Mansion at 931 SW King Avenue in Portland was built in 1893 for Theodore B. Wilcox, a flour and banking magnate, by the prominent Portland architecture firm Whidden & Lewis. The 12,882-square-foot Victorian structure served as the Wilcox family residence until mid-century, housed a Soviet purchasing mission during World War II and a music conservatory afterward, then became the home of country radio station KWJJ from 1957 to 1997.
Portland, OR
Kennedy School opened as a Portland Public Schools elementary in 1915 on land sold by John Daniel Kennedy to the district in 1913, serving the Concordia neighborhood. The school operated until 1975 and stood vacant before McMenamins purchased and renovated it in 1997 into a hotel, restaurant, brewpub, theater, soaking pool, and event venue.
Portland, OR
Lewis & Clark College was founded as Albany Collegiate Institute in 1867 in Albany, Oregon and relocated to Portland beginning in 1934. The college's current campus was established in 1942 on the former Lloyd and Edna Levy Frank Fir Acres estate in southwest Portland, a forested ridgeline property southwest of the city.
Portland, OR
Local entrepreneur Philip Gevurtz opened the nine-story, 700-room Multnomah Hotel on February 8, 1912, filling an entire downtown city block. Designed by Gibson & Cahill in the American Renaissance style, it hosted nine U.S. presidents and Pacific Coast luminaries before closing in 1965. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and reopened in 1997 as the Embassy Suites Portland Downtown after extensive renovation.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPPortland, OR
Morningside Hospital operated from 1883 to 1968 at SE Stark and 96th Avenue in Portland, Oregon. Beginning in 1904, the U.S. Department of the Interior contracted with Morningside to receive mentally ill patients from Alaska, including large numbers of Alaska Native people. By the time the hospital closed in 1968, at least 3,500 Alaskans had been sent there — many never returned home and some are believed buried in an on-site ravine that is now beneath Mall 205.
Portland, OR
The building dates to roughly 1880 and originally housed the Merchant Hotel, one of Portland's oldest surviving commercial structures in the Old Town/Chinatown district. Old Town Pizza opened in the former lobby in 1974 under the Accuardi family and now operates as Old Town Pizza & Brewing. The pizzeria sits directly above sections of the Portland Underground, commonly known as the Shanghai Tunnels.
Portland, OR
Pittock Mansion is a 1914 French Renaissance chateau in Portland, Oregon, built for newspaper publisher Henry Pittock and his wife Georgiana Burton Pittock. Now owned by the City of Portland Bureau of Parks and Recreation, the 46-room sandstone estate operates as a historic house museum and city overlook.
Portland, OR
Owner Goody Cable opened Rimsky-Korsakoffee House in 1980 inside an existing 1902 Craftsman-style home she had been using to host classical-music gatherings. The dessert-and-coffee house is named for Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and has continuously operated in the same building in the Buckman neighborhood.
Portland, OR
The Apostolic Faith Church built the structure at 8 NW Sixth Avenue in 1922 with a 200-seat downstairs chapel and a 1,150-capacity upstairs meeting hall, constructed entirely with donated labor. The building was converted by Larry Hurwitz to the Starry Night nightclub in 1982; after Hurwitz's involvement in the 1990 murder of promoter Tim Moreau, the venue was sold and renamed Roseland Theater in 1991, with a $2.5 million renovation completed by 1997 expanding capacity to 1,400.
Portland, OR
Portland's Shanghai Tunnels are a network of interconnected basements and brick-arched passages beneath Old Town Chinatown, originally built to move goods between waterfront docks and merchant cellars during the late nineteenth century. The 'shanghaiing' narrative was popularized in 1933 by Stewart Holbrook in Sunday Oregonian articles.
Portland, OR
Slabtown Tours is a Portland-based walking-tour company led by historian Dr. Tanya Lyn March, running archive-grounded ghost and true-crime tours through Northwest Portland and the St. Johns neighborhood.
Portland, OR
US Ghost Adventures operates its Portland program under the local brand Portland Ghosts, running nightly Old Town/Chinatown walking tours plus a haunted pub crawl. The route centers on Portland's documented Shanghai Tunnels and 19th- and early 20th-century Old Town history.
Portland, OR
The building at 836 N Russell Street was constructed in 1899, with the saloon opened in 1905 by Polish immigrants Bronislaw 'Barney' Soboleski and William Hryszko, who named it for the white eagle on the Polish flag. It served as a rough-and-tumble working-class bar with rooms upstairs and was nicknamed the 'Bucket of Blood.' McMenamins purchased and rehabilitated the property in 1997, and it now operates as a bar and hotel.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPPortland, OR
The stone ruin is the Macleay Park Shelter, designed by Portland architect Ernest F. Tucker and built in the mid-1930s as a public restroom and storage building for what was then Macleay Park, on land donated to the city by Donald Macleay in 1897. The water line was destroyed in the 1962 Columbus Day Storm and the structure was abandoned to weather and moss. The site sits on land originally claimed by 1850s settler Danford Balch.
Salem, OR
Bush House, built in 1878, is a historic estate in Salem, Oregon. Asahel Bush, founding editor of the Oregon Statesman (1851-1863) and co-founder of Ladd & Bush Bank (1868), constructed the mansion. Since 1953, the house has operated as a museum operated by the Salem Art Association.
Salem, OR
The Elsinore Theatre opened May 28, 1926 as a 1,290-seat silent-film and vaudeville house built for Salem businessman George Guthrie. Designed by Ellis F. Lawrence of the Portland firm Lawrence & Holford in Tudor Gothic style — patterned after Hamlet's Elsinore Castle — it was hailed at opening as the largest and most lavish theater between Portland and San Francisco. After a 1989 sale to Act III Theatres and a community-led purchase by the Save the Elsinore Committee in 1990, it operates today as a nonprofit performing-arts venue. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1994.
Salem, OR
Lausanne Hall, built in 1920, is the oldest residential building at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. The three-story red-brick dormitory on the western edge of campus originally housed women exclusively and can accommodate up to 152 students. It stands as one of the more architecturally intact examples of early 20th-century collegiate construction in the Pacific Northwest.
Salem, OR
The property at 5465 Turner Rd SE in Salem began as the Oregon State Reform School for Boys in 1891. Four unnamed boys died at the school — possibly from tuberculosis or fires — during the reform school era. The site transitioned to the Oregon State Penitentiary Farm Annex in 1929 and operated as Mill Creek Correctional Facility until its closure in June 2021. The boys' graves remain in a cemetery on the grounds.
Salem, OR
The Willamette Heritage Center in Salem encompasses the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill (1889), the oldest standing timber-frame structure in Oregon, and fourteen historic buildings including the Jason Lee House (1841), the oldest single-family home in the Salem area. The site was created in 2010 through the merger of the Mission Mill Museum and the Marion County Historical Society.
Salem, OR
Oregon State Hospital opened in 1883 as the State Insane Asylum in Salem. It served as the filming location for the 1975 Academy Award-winning film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In 2004, staff discovered 3,423 copper urns containing unclaimed patient cremated remains in a hospital basement. In 1942, a kitchen worker accidentally used sodium fluoride cockroach powder instead of powdered milk in a scrambled egg preparation, killing 47 patients and sickening 467 more.
Salem, OR
The Oregon State Capitol is the third capitol building on the site, completed June 18, 1938 in an Art Deco / Stripped Classical design by Trowbridge & Livingston with Francis Keally. It replaced the second capitol — destroyed in the April 25, 1935 fire that killed volunteer firefighter and Willamette University student Floyd McMullen — and is one of only three U.S. state capitols built in this style. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 29, 1988 and houses the state legislature, governor, secretary of state, and treasurer.
Salem, OR
Oregon State Hospital opened in Salem in 1883 and is the oldest operating psychiatric hospital in Oregon. The original Kirkbride Building, designed on Thomas Story Kirkbride's reform-era plan, served as the primary filming location for the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The center of the Kirkbride Building was preserved during the 2008-onward redevelopment and now houses the Museum of Mental Health.
Salem, OR
The blocks near Trade and Church Streets along Mill Creek, beside today's Pringle Park, served as Salem's public execution ground in the mid-19th century. At least four men were hanged here, beginning with William Kendall in 1851 and including George Beale and George Baker in 1865 for the murder of Daniel Delaney. The site is now occupied by a parking structure.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPSalem, OR
Salem Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1853 by Chemeketa Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on a 16-acre site at the intersection of South Commercial Street and Hoyt Street. Earliest burials center on Methodist missionary David Leslie, whose Methodist Mission predated permanent Oregon settlement, and the grounds include Oregon's first congressional delegate Samuel R. Thurston, pioneer Tabitha Moffatt Brown, Governor John P. Gaines, and approximately 8,000 burials in total. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 11, 2013 under its historic name 'Odd Fellows Rural Cemetery' (reference #13000707). The City of Salem Parks Division has held title since 1985.
Salem, OR
Salem's Historic Grand Theatre — officially the Chemeketa Lodge No. 1, Odd Fellows Buildings — was built in 1900 as a lodge hall and opera house by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, designed by Pugh & Gray in Romanesque Revival style. It opened November 29, 1900 with the Julius Grau Opera Company and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The 402-seat venue (288 main floor, 114 balcony) is now operated by To The Ceiling Entertainment as a multi-use performing-arts venue and hosts the seasonal 'Ghosts of the Grand' haunted attraction.
Eugene, OR
The building at 492 E 13th Avenue in Eugene was built in 1925, designed by W.R.B. Wilcox, the University of Oregon's first dean of architecture, originally as the First Congregational Church. It became the McGaffey and Andreason Mortuary in 1956, then the Bijou Art Cinemas in 1980. After the Bijou closed in 2021, the space reopened as the Art House in 2022.
Eugene, OR
Eugene Masonic Cemetery was established in 1859 as Eugene's first chartered cemetery, on land purchased by city founder Eugene Skinner. It holds pioneers including Skinner and artist Maude Kerns. The Hope Abbey Mausoleum, designed in the Egyptian Revival style by architect Ellis F. Lawrence and dedicated in 1914, anchors the southwest corner. The cemetery and mausoleum are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Eugene, OR
Eugene Pioneer Cemetery was established in 1872 by the Spencer Butte Lodge No. 9 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows on a 16-acre site beside what is now the University of Oregon. With roughly 5,000 burials, it is the largest cemetery in Eugene by acreage and interments. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1997, and honors 145 Civil War veterans among others.
Eugene, OR
Lane Community College was authorized by Lane County voters in October 1964 following Oregon's 1959 community-college legislation, and held its first classes on September 20, 1965, at leased space on North Monroe Street in Eugene. The main East 30th Avenue campus opened in September 1968 on 105.81 acres donated by Eugene industrialist Wilfred Gonyea; satellite campuses followed in Florence, Cottage Grove, and downtown Eugene.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPEugene, OR
McArthur Court opened in 1926 as the University of Oregon's basketball arena and served as the home of Ducks basketball for more than 80 years before Matthew Knight Arena opened in 2011. The building sits directly across University Street from the Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, the city's oldest burying ground.
Eugene, OR
The Shelton McMurphey Johnson House is an 1888 Queen Anne Victorian on the slope of Skinner Butte in Eugene, built for physician T.W. Shelton. Locally known as the Castle on the Hill, it passed through the McMurphey and Johnson families before becoming a city-owned house museum. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jacksonville, OR
The Herman Helms House is an 1878 Italianate residence built by German immigrant Herman von Helms, owner of Jacksonville's Table Rock Billiard Saloon. He and his wife Augusta raised a large family here; of their nine children, only five reached adulthood. The Helms family kept the house until 1926. It is documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Jacksonville, OR
The former Jackson County Courthouse in Jacksonville was built in the early 1880s, when Jacksonville served as the seat of Jackson County in southern Oregon. The brick building hosted county business, trials, and executions before the county seat moved to Medford in 1927. It survives as a centerpiece of the town's National Historic Landmark district.
Jacksonville, OR
Historic Jacksonville, Inc. runs the Haunted History Walking Tour in Jacksonville, a southern Oregon Gold Rush town and National Historic Landmark district. The costumed one-hour tours come in two routes, the Britt Hill Tour and the Courthouse Tour, and draw on documented town history rather than invented scares.
Jacksonville, OR
McCully House was built in 1860 by Dr. John McCully, Jacksonville's first physician, and his wife Jane. In 1862, after losing his money in gold mining, John abandoned the family, leaving Jane with three young children and substantial debt. Jane McCully proved exceptionally resourceful — first baking for the mining community, then opening Mrs. McCully's Seminary in June 1862, Jacksonville's first school for girls. The inn is the oldest home in Oregon currently operating as an inn and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jacksonville, OR
US Ghost Adventures operates a nightly walking tour of Jacksonville, Oregon's National Historic Landmark Gold Rush district, meeting in front of the Historic Jackson County Courthouse at 206 N 5th St.
Oregon City, OR
The Francis Ermatinger House was built around 1843 for Francis Ermatinger, a Hudson's Bay Company chief trader who later served as treasurer of Oregon's Provisional Government. It is considered the third-oldest house in Oregon and the oldest in Clackamas County. The left parlor is the reputed site of the 1845 coin toss between Francis Pettygrove and Asa Lovejoy that named Portland. The house has been moved twice — to 11th and Center streets in 1910 and to its current 6th Street site in 1986 — was listed on the National Register in 1977, and reopened as a museum in 2018.
Oregon City, OR
The McLoughlin House at 713 Center Street in Oregon City was built by Dr. John McLoughlin in 1846 following his retirement as chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District. McLoughlin had governed the Pacific Northwest fur trade from Fort Vancouver since 1824, and his policy of providing supplies and assistance to American settlers made him a central figure in the Oregon Territory's transition to American governance. He founded Oregon City and is commemorated as 'the Father of Oregon.' McLoughlin died in his house in 1857; the building opened as a museum in 1910 and is operated by the McLoughlin Memorial Association.
Oregon City, OR
Northwest Ghost Tours has operated guided ghost walks in Oregon City since 2006 under local historian and paranormal investigator Rocky Smith, who was born and raised in the city. The company runs four seasonal walking routes covering Oregon's oldest incorporated city west of the Rockies — downtown, the Oregon Trail terminus area, and the McLoughlin neighborhood and promenade — combining documented local history with folklore and reported hauntings.
Oregon City, OR
The Oregon City Municipal Elevator is a free public elevator that connects the city's lower downtown to the upper bluff neighborhood, functioning as a 130-foot 'vertical street.' The first elevator opened in 1915; the current Art Moderne tower, designed by Gordon E. Trapp and engineered by Ervin Aksel Sööt with an Otis car, was built in 1954-55 and dedicated May 5, 1955. It carries hundreds to over a thousand riders a day, became self-service after the COVID-19 pandemic, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
Oregon City, OR
US Ghost Adventures runs a separate Oregon City program from the independently operated Northwest Ghost Tours already in this corpus. The USGA program, 'Outcasts, Oracles, & Oblivion,' is a nightly 1-hour walking tour built around the McLoughlin House and the Oregon City Municipal Elevator.
Astoria, OR
Hotel Elliott opened in 1924 at 357 12th Street as one of the first major rebuilt structures after the Great Astoria Fire of 1922, originally named Hotel Niemi before local entrepreneur Jeremiah Elliott took over and gave it his name. The hotel operated continuously through the 20th century, falling into decline before a 1999-2003 renovation by new ownership reopened the building with 32 rooms and 11 suites. It is among downtown Astoria's longest-standing hotels.
Astoria, OR
The Norblad Hotel opened in January 1924 at 443 14th Street and is the oldest continuously operating hotel in Astoria. Designed by architect John E. Wicks and named for George F. Norblad, it originally housed a bank on the ground floor and a hotel above. Restored in 2007 by Paul Caruana and partners, it now operates as a boutique hotel and is rumored to connect via the basement to Astoria's underground tunnel network.
Astoria, OR
Pier 39 is the oldest surviving cannery pier on the Columbia River. Opened in 1875 by tinsmith-turned-cannery-operator J.O. Hanthorn, the Hanthorn Cannery operated continuously through the late-19th-century salmon boom and was later absorbed into the Bumble Bee Seafoods operation. Today the 150-year-old, 84,800-square-foot pier complex houses the Hanthorn Cannery Museum, Rogue Pier 39 Public House, Coffee Girl coffee shop, the Vineside wine bar, the Fisherman's Suites lodging, and artist studios.
Astoria, OR
The Liberty Theatre opened in April 1925 as the first major theater rebuilt after the Great Astoria Fire of 1922 destroyed downtown. Designed by Portland firm Bennes and Herzog in Italian Renaissance style for theater operators Claude Jensen and John von Herberg, it served as a 1,300-seat vaudeville and motion-picture palace and now operates as a nonprofit performing-arts venue. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Bend, OR
The Deschutes Historical Museum occupies the former Reid School, a three-story brick schoolhouse built in 1914 in downtown Bend. The building served as a public school for decades before the Deschutes County Historical Society opened its museum there in 1980. The Reid School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bend, OR
The building opened in 1936 as St. Francis School, the first Catholic parochial school in Central Oregon. It taught local children for decades before the school community moved to a new campus in 2000. McMenamins renovated the landmark and reopened it in 2004 as a hotel, brewpub, brewery, theater, and soaking pool.
Bend, OR
Irish-born businessman Hugh O'Kane built the O'Kane Building in 1916 after his Bend Hotel burned in August 1915. Designed by the Beezer Brothers of Seattle, it was the first building in Bend built primarily of reinforced concrete and remains downtown's largest commercial structure. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Bend, OR
The building at 50 SE Scott Street in Bend was constructed around 1921 as the office of the Bend Iron Works, later Mid-Oregon Iron Works, in what is now the Old Ironworks Arts District. Payroll for the foundry was delivered by train and kept in a large on-site safe, which the building still references. The structure was repurposed as The Sparrow Bakery, which opened in the space in the 2000s.
Ashland, OR
Walk Ashland is the tour company of Peter Finkle, who moved to Ashland in 1991 and began researching and writing about the town's history, neighborhoods, art and culture full-time in 2018. The haunted tours grew out of his history walks.
Ashland, OR
Lithia Park began as an 8-acre city reserve in 1892 and was formally dedicated over the Independence Day holiday, July 4-6, 1916, after landscape architect John McLaren — superintendent of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park — developed its master plan. The park expanded to 93 acres along Ashland Creek and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPCannon Beach, OR
The Bandage Man is a long-running Oregon coast urban legend tied to the approach road connecting U.S. Highway 101 to the town of Cannon Beach in Clatsop County. The highway alignment in this area was rerouted over the decades; the legend is usually attached to the older, wooded 'short approach' rather than the modern straightened road. There is no built structure central to the story — the 'venue' is the roadway and the surrounding coastal woods. The tale has been recounted in regional folklore collections and Oregon ghost-tour material since at least the mid-twentieth century.
Cannon Beach, OR
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse was built between 1880 and 1881 on an isolated basalt rock 1.2 miles off the Oregon Coast near Cannon Beach. Before construction finished, surveyor John R. Trewavas drowned attempting to land on the rock. During construction in January 1881, the British barque Lupatia wrecked nearby in a storm; all 16 crew were lost. The lighthouse operated until decommissioning in 1957 and was used as a columbarium from 1980 to 1999.
Gold Hill, OR
The Oregon Vortex began as a mining company assay office built around 1904 that slid off its foundation in a landslide. Prospector William McCollugh rediscovered the site in 1914 and brought in Scottish engineer John Litster, who opened it to the public in 1930 as the House of Mystery, one of the earliest roadside 'mystery spot' attractions in the country. It has stayed in the hands of Litster's family and successors ever since.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPGold Hill, OR
Rock Point Cemetery is a pioneer burial ground in Gold Hill, Jackson County, Oregon, established in the 1860s on land donated by the White family near their stagecoach stop. It holds more than 1,000 graves across a maintained IOOF section and an overgrown Pioneer section. Though the town of Rock Point has long vanished, the cemetery remains a significant repository of southern Oregon pioneer history.
Klamath Falls, OR
The Linkville Players are the oldest community theater group in the Klamath Basin, tracing their history through predecessor organizations including the Pelican Players and Klamath Civic Theatre. The current playhouse at 201 Main Street in Klamath Falls has been the organization's home since the mid-1980s. The organization has presented amateur theatrical productions for the region for more than 50 years.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPKlamath Falls, OR
Mazama High School in Klamath Falls, Oregon is an active public high school operated by the Klamath County School District, serving approximately 692 students in grades 9-12 as of 2024. The school's mascot is the Viking.
La Grande, OR
Candy Cane Park is a small municipal park in central La Grande, Oregon. In the early hours of February 12, 1983, the body of 21-year-old bartender Dana DuMars was found in the park; she had been attacked with a hatchet and died of her injuries later that day. A suspect was tried and convicted but the conviction was overturned on appeal due to interrogation and evidence issues; the case remains officially unsolved.
La Grande, OR
The Hot Lake Hotel traces its origins to 1864, when Samuel Fitzgerald Newhart constructed the first building at the natural hot springs southeast of La Grande, Oregon. Architect John V. Bennes designed the landmark 65,000-square-foot Colonial Revival brick addition, completed in 1906. The resort became one of the Pacific Northwest's leading destinations, billed as the Mayo Clinic of the West under Dr. W.T. Phy's medical management after 1917. A 1934 fire destroyed the wooden west wing; the brick structure survived. After decades of abandonment following the facility's 1991 closure, restoration began in 2003. New owners took over in 2020 and have continued restoration, operating the property today as The Lodge at Hot Lake Springs.
Pendleton, OR
Pendleton Underground Tours, a nonprofit founded in 1989, guides visitors through the network of tunnels and rooms beneath downtown Pendleton. Much of the underground was dug and used by Chinese immigrant laborers who came to the region in the late 1800s, many after railroad work, and who faced severe discrimination, including a local 'sundowner' restriction that kept them off the streets after dark. The tour interprets their underground living and working spaces alongside the city's documented Prohibition-era card rooms, an opium den, and the 'Cozy Rooms' brothel.
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Pendleton, OR
The Working Girls Hotel occupies a late-1890s brick boarding house in downtown Pendleton, Oregon, a building that operated as one of the town's many bordellos. In a stretch where Pendleton counted dozens of bars and brothels within a few blocks, the property survived into the modern era and was restored and reopened as a hotel in 1991, later coming under the ownership of Pendleton Underground Tours.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPTigard, OR
Sunset Pioneer Cemetery in Tigard, Oregon, sits on the small hill above Canterbury Lane and dates to the 1886 founding of the Emanuel German Evangelical Church. Many headstones bear German inscriptions reflecting the early settlers who built the church on what was then a dirt road that became Highway 99.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPTigard, OR
The Fanno Creek Trail is an 8.3-mile paved regional trail along Fanno Creek through Tigard, Beaverton, and Washington County, Oregon. The creek and trail are named for Augustus Fanno, a Missouri-born pioneer who established a 1847 donation land claim along the creek and was known as the 'Onion King' for his agricultural production.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPAdair Village, OR
Camp Adair was a 57,159-acre U.S. Army training cantonment rapidly constructed near Corvallis, Oregon, following Pearl Harbor. Formally dedicated September 6, 1943, the base housed up to 40,000 personnel — enough to make it Oregon's second-largest city. From August 1944 to July 1946, German and Italian prisoners of war were detained there, providing agricultural labor in the surrounding Willamette Valley. After the war the land was absorbed into Oregon State University research forests and the Oregon Department of Forestry, with Adair Village incorporated around surviving community structures.
Burns, OR
Ye Olde Castle Restaurant operated at 186 W Monroe Street in Burns, Oregon, as a combined steakhouse and antique emporium. The structure was built as a private home in the early nineteenth century and converted to its restaurant role in the late twentieth century. The restaurant has since closed.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPCanby, OR
Historic Baker Prairie Cemetery is a pioneer-era burial ground in Canby, Clackamas County, Oregon, located on Knights Bridge Road. It is one of several historic cemeteries serving the Baker Prairie settlement area and is now maintained by the City of Canby as a public historic site documenting the region's early settlers.
Cave Junction, OR
The Chateau at Oregon Caves opened in 1934 as a rustic six-story lodge above Oregon Caves National Monument, became a National Historic Landmark in 1987, and has been closed to guests since 2018 for structural rehabilitation, with no set reopening date.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPCottage Grove, OR
Mt. David is an 881-foot bluff on the western edge of Cottage Grove, Oregon. The Kalapuya people held the hill as sacred ground, associating its rock outcroppings with the birthplace of the culture hero Le-lu. John McFarland claimed the land in 1850 under the Oregon Donation Land Act, and the McFarland family cemetery at the hill's base contains burials from 1863 through 2012.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPDamascus, OR
Burials at the Damascus Pioneer Cemetery predate 1855, making it one of Clackamas County's oldest surviving burial grounds. James Thompson Chitwood and Margaret Chitwood officially deeded the land for public burial in 1876, and the Damascus Cemetery Association was formally established in 1895 to oversee its care. With over 1,400 interments including many unnamed early settlers, the cemetery remained under volunteer management into the 21st century.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPDeer Island, OR
Kinder Cemetery is a small rural burial ground in Columbia County, Oregon, located on the north side of Highway 30 in the Deer Island area between St. Helens and Rainier. The cemetery sits in the Columbia River Highway corridor, a region settled in the 19th century as part of Oregon's agricultural development along the lower Columbia River.
Echo, OR
Echo, Oregon sits at the historic crossroads of Indian trails and the Oregon Trail on the Umatilla River. In 1847, an emigrant party crossed here and opened the Columbia Plateau Route, which became the primary path of the Oregon Trail. The town was platted in 1880 by James H. Koontz, named for his three-year-old daughter, and incorporated in 1904. Ten of its buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Elgin, OR
The Elgin Opera House was completed in 1912 as a dual-purpose Colonial Revival building housing the city government and a 400-seat theater. Walter M. Pierce, later governor of Oregon, delivered the dedication address on July 4, 1912. The opera house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Forest Grove, OR
McMenamins Grand Lodge opened in 1922 as the Masonic and Eastern Star Home, a retirement community for aging members of the Freemason fraternal order. It served 'poor, sick, and elderly' Master Masons and their families for approximately 80 years before new facilities were built in 1999. McMenamins, a family-owned Oregon hospitality company specializing in historic building renovation, acquired the property in 1999.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPGales Creek, OR
Agaard Road is located on Highway 6 heading toward Tillamook from Forest Grove, Washington County, Oregon. The road crosses a creek and passes an abandoned residential property. The area has a dark history involving at least one death.
Hammond, OR
Battery Russell is one of nine concrete coastal-artillery emplacements built between 1897 and 1906 to defend the mouth of the Columbia River as part of Fort Stevens. Completed in 1904 and named for Civil War Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, the battery mounted two 10-inch M1888 'disappearing' rifles. It was decommissioned in 1944. On the night of June 21-22, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced offshore and fired roughly 17 shells in the direction of the fort — the first foreign attack on a mainland U.S. military installation since the War of 1812. The site is preserved within Fort Stevens State Park, Hammond, Oregon.
Hood River, OR
Simon Benson, a Portland lumber magnate and notable philanthropist, built the Columbia Gorge Hotel in 1920 at the edge of a dramatic cliff overlooking the Columbia River in Hood River, Oregon. The hotel hosted presidents and celebrities during the Jazz Age and operated continuously through several ownership changes. It served as a retirement home for a period in the mid-20th century before returning to hotel use.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPLafayette, OR
Lafayette, Oregon was an early Yamhill County seat whose pioneer cemetery dates to the mid-1800s. The town's 'curse' legend traces to a documented event: the November 1, 1886 ax murder of storekeeper David Corker and the November 11, 1887 hanging of convicted killer Richard Marple, during which his mother Anna reportedly cursed the town. Lafayette subsequently lost the county seat to McMinnville and suffered repeated fires.
Monmouth, OR
Todd Hall on the Western Oregon University campus in Monmouth, Oregon, was built in 1912 as the school's first dormitory. It is named for Jessica M. Todd, the first Dean of Women at what was then Oregon Normal School, who served the institution until her retirement in 1931. Today the Tudor-style building houses Behavioral Sciences, Modern Languages, and the Teaching Research Institute.
Mount Hood National Forest, OR
Little Crater Lake is a spring-fed pond in the Mount Hood National Forest in Clackamas County, Oregon, created by artesian water forcing through soft volcanic rock along a fault line. The water maintains a constant 33-34°F year-round and reaches a depth of 45 feet, with visibility to the bottom due to the suppression of algae growth at that temperature. No swimming is permitted.
Newberg, OR
The Newberg Graphic was founded on December 1, 1888, by Hiatt & Hobson as a four-page weekly newspaper. It is one of Oregon's longest-running community papers. The paper has changed ownership several times, passing through Eagle Newspapers (1985), Pamplin Media Group (2013), and Carpenter Media Group (June 2024). It currently operates at 500 East Hancock Street.
Redmond, OR
The original Redmond Hotel was built in 1906 by William and Fanny Wilson. After it burned in June 1927, construction on the New Redmond Hotel began immediately, with grand opening in July 1928. The building's Georgian architecture earned it a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in October 1980. The hotel closed in 2004, sat vacant until 2017, underwent a $7 million renovation, and reopened as SCP Hotel Redmond in December 2019.
Sumpter, OR
Gold drew miners to the Elkhorn Mountains around Sumpter starting in the 1860s; three successive bucket-line dredges worked the Powder River valley floor between 1913 and 1954, and the last of them is now preserved as a walk-through state heritage site.
Terrebonne, OR
The Peter Skene Ogden State Scenic Viewpoint sits along US-97 in Terrebonne, Oregon, above the Crooked River Gorge. The site hosts two historic bridges: the 1926 steel-arch Crooked River High Bridge and the 2000 Rex T. Barber Veteran Memorial Bridge. On May 11, 1961, this viewpoint became the scene of Oregon's most notorious child murder case, when Jeannace June Freeman and Gertrude May Nuñez Jackson killed two children and disposed of their bodies in the gorge below.
Troutdale, OR
McMenamins Edgefield occupies the former Multnomah County Poor Farm, built in 1911 in Troutdale, Oregon to shelter the county's destitute. It grew to 345 acres and a peak population of 614 residents during the Depression, later operating as Edgefield Manor nursing home until 1982. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, it was restored by the McMenamins brothers into a hotel, winery, and entertainment complex.
Wolf Creek, OR
Wolf Creek Inn opened in 1883 as a refuge for stagecoach travelers on the Applegate Trail through the Siskiyou Mountains and is the oldest continuously operating inn in the Pacific Northwest. The State of Oregon acquired and restored the property between 1975 and 1979, and it now operates as Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage Site.