I went their in 1945 with my Grandfather by train who worked for the UPRR. Don’t remember that there was much a town, just that everyone helped turn the locomotive around on the turn table in order to go forward back to Huntington.
Thanks for stopping by Dennis! That’s a great story, I’m surprised the train lasted that long though. The vast majority of the ghost towns in Oregon were totally gone by WWII.
I lived there in mid to late 1940’s while my dad was in the Navy. My mom went to grade school there. After war, dad owned general store & was postmaster & drove a coal truck. Cool place. Used to be an annual Robinette picnic even after dam destroyed the town.
My mother was born in Robinette in 1936. Granddad (her father) was a miner/sharecropper and Granny (her mom) did a lot of produce picking. The valley there had a lot of peach trees so in season these were picked and shipped out in rail cars. There was also in the 1920’s and early 30’s large Turkey sheds that held 100’s of turkeys which were slaughtered and shipped to Spokane and Portland via that rail. The story goes that during prohibition the turkey “breasts” were stuffed with bottles of moonshine and shipped out and lots of $ was made. Unfortunately with the depression the turkey business went bust. and the abandoned turkey sheds lay in the sun baking the dried up feces. My mother’s parents were share croppers and lived in a tent all during the time in Robinette. So when Granny needed to give birth she didn’t want to use the tent where the other children were. So she and the midwife cleaned out an area in one of the old turkey sheds and that is where mom was born. Here is the unfortunate part. Because Bird feces carries a bacteria in it. . .the moment mom was born she was exposed to it. And by the time she was 5 she was totally blind. But they didn’t know the cause at the time. Granny & Granddad moved out of Robinette by 1938 to Canyonville Oregon. Both Granny & Granddad changed careers to logging. I have two pictures of the tent and the kids while in Robinette but none of the actual town. I would love to find pics to add to my family history collection.
I recall riding in a truck from Cornucopia Gold Mines with concentrate in the truck bed. My uncle George Mitchell ( mother, Marcella Mitchell Taylor) mom’s younger brother. This was a thrill for this 5 year-old boy in 1949.
I went their in 1945 with my Grandfather by train who worked for the UPRR. Don’t remember that there was much a town, just that everyone helped turn the locomotive around on the turn table in order to go forward back to Huntington.
Thanks for stopping by Dennis! That’s a great story, I’m surprised the train lasted that long though. The vast majority of the ghost towns in Oregon were totally gone by WWII.
I lived there in mid to late 1940’s while my dad was in the Navy. My mom went to grade school there. After war, dad owned general store & was postmaster & drove a coal truck. Cool place. Used to be an annual Robinette picnic even after dam destroyed the town.
My mother was born in Robinette in 1936. Granddad (her father) was a miner/sharecropper and Granny (her mom) did a lot of produce picking. The valley there had a lot of peach trees so in season these were picked and shipped out in rail cars. There was also in the 1920’s and early 30’s large Turkey sheds that held 100’s of turkeys which were slaughtered and shipped to Spokane and Portland via that rail. The story goes that during prohibition the turkey “breasts” were stuffed with bottles of moonshine and shipped out and lots of $ was made. Unfortunately with the depression the turkey business went bust. and the abandoned turkey sheds lay in the sun baking the dried up feces. My mother’s parents were share croppers and lived in a tent all during the time in Robinette. So when Granny needed to give birth she didn’t want to use the tent where the other children were. So she and the midwife cleaned out an area in one of the old turkey sheds and that is where mom was born. Here is the unfortunate part. Because Bird feces carries a bacteria in it. . .the moment mom was born she was exposed to it. And by the time she was 5 she was totally blind. But they didn’t know the cause at the time. Granny & Granddad moved out of Robinette by 1938 to Canyonville Oregon. Both Granny & Granddad changed careers to logging. I have two pictures of the tent and the kids while in Robinette but none of the actual town. I would love to find pics to add to my family history collection.
I recall riding in a truck from Cornucopia Gold Mines with concentrate in the truck bed. My uncle George Mitchell ( mother, Marcella Mitchell Taylor) mom’s younger brother. This was a thrill for this 5 year-old boy in 1949.