Fred Harman Museum

Jump Off Joe

My friend Bill in Santa Fe told me about an article he published in t he 1980s about a place on the coast called Jump Off Joes.  He said it was the most controversial condo development project on the Oregon coast.  It is the story of a developer who tried to build condos on land in Newport, Oregon.  The community fought against the development, but the developer was able to go ahead with the building anyway.  The condo development ended up sinking and had to be torn down.  The city of Newport was forced to buy the property.  Several companies went bankrupt in the process.   Here is a great summary article of the situation.

We realized on our visit that the old development was just down the street from our hotel, the Inn at Nye Beach.  So we walked down to the end of 11th street where the foundation of the old condos was supposed to be and we were very surprised to see a brand new condos for sale!  They aren't selling like hot cakes....

This is the foundation of the condo development from the 1980s.

Below is a picture of the end of 11th street in Newport.  The old condo foundation is right below the road barricade and the new condo is just to the right of this picture.

This is a picture of the view the condos have looking northwest. This tree will probably be part of the next section of land to fall onto the beach below.

Faribank, Arizona

Fairbank is a ghost town that was once a mining processing town that supported the mining occurring in Tombstone and Bisbee.  The town site is now on BLM land and is part of the protected San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.  The entire town was sold in the early 1900s.  There was a lot of confusion, because people in the town believed they owned their property.  They were angry when they left so they destroyed their homes, or took their houses apart and moved them to a new location.   There is a cemetery north of the town, but since many of the markers were made of wood, there are few traditional grave markers remaining.

Panhandle Buildings

We have been watching Ken Burn's The Dust Bowl series on PBS this month.  It is really an outstanding historical story, and made driving from Santa Fe to Kansas much more interesting this past week.  These pictures are from the panhandle of Oklahoma ("no man's land" in Burn's film) and eastern New Mexico between Clayton and Springer.

Seeing these homes reminded me of a quote Dad read to me a few years ago from the book Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon.  In the book he is in New York state, but he could easily be walking around any of the blue highways in the Oklahoma panhandle, with houses with withered grasses, dry garden plots, and wind-bent trees.

In the moonlight, we walked over an abandoned vineyard. The posts had fallen down, the vines inched about for something to crawl up on; one had twisted around a rusting baler and another climbed a broken plow. We passed a foundation of a barn that had collapsed, a toppled chimney, and a weedy depression where an icehouse had stood. "These are all dreams we're walking over," I said.

Church

I have seen a lot of interesting things driving around the South this week. This one.... I had to turn around and photograph. This is a church right out side of Chattanooga on the east side of Lookout Mountain, right below the mountain. I was driving on the highway right in front of it and saw it out of the corner of my eye.

Fort Stanton

Lincoln

Ghost Ranch in Review

We first happened by the Ghost Ranch hotel in Tucson on our 2009 visit. I had just read Lesley Poling-Kempes' book on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and I knew the family, the Packs, that started Ghost Ranch in New Mexico also had a connection to Tucson. Arthur Pack was one of the founders of the amazing Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. The Ghost Ranch hotel was opened by the Packs when they moved from New Mexico to Tucson.

Here are pictures from 2009. I was heartbroken to see this revered symbol associated with the grand Ghost Ranch in New Mexico - abandon and lonely on the side of a busy street.




In 2010 we saw signs that the hotel was going to be remodeled for senior housing.

This year things were looking good at the Ghost Ranch hotel. The property is near completion. The people who made it into senior housing were faithful to the old design and many of the design elements. It seems like a cozy place to live.






Here is a link to an article about the rehabilitation of the property.