A ghost town worthy of it’s title: Golden

We are discovering that the OAL (Oddity Attraction Level) may be enhanced by a good meal along the way.  So, visitors are encouraged to stop at the historic Wolf Creek Inn for a casual and tasty repast.  Nine rooms, appropriately decorated, also are available.  Built in 1883 for travelers following the Applegate Trail, the inn remains open for I-5 motorists today.  Alas, meals, room, and bath no longer are available for 75 cents, but the ambiance is much more interesting than the usual chain restaurants found off of interstate highways.  The inn now is managed by the Oregon State Parks as a State Heritage Site.   The grounds are open to the public. For more information: http://wolfcreekinn.com.

The real goal for our trip was to find a ghost town that was more impressive than Buncom.  Located twenty miles north of Grants Pass, and easily found east of I-5 and the Wolf Creek Inn exit, Golden Historic District is an Oregon State Heritage Site.  Located near Coyote Creek, the town originally was settled in the 1840s by aspiring gold miners.  It was abandoned by the peripatetic miners and then taken over temporarily by Chinese miners.  As was true in many other places, the Chinese were then expelled by the original settlers.  By about 1885, a hydraulic mine was in place, followed by a church, general store, and carriage house, all of which remain today.  The buildings are well preserved and the church is especially attractive.  When combined with ease of access and lunch at the Wolf Creek Inn, the OAL for Golden is at least at 9 (out of 10).  Kudos also are due to local groups who gradually have been restoring the mining pits to functioning wetlands, which now even house beavers.

Anne

View of recovering wetlands at Golden

Yes, Golden definitely beats Buncom in the ghost-town sweepstakes — more buildings, older, more accessible, farther off the grid, a little more visibly decayed.  Anne’s 9/10 score would be a little high for either attraction alone, but I agree is justified if we roll inn and town into one OAL score — (for Buncom, a 2 would be generous).   I really can’t go much higher the town alone; it is maintained and protected and if there are people intimately involved, they get in the way of the ghosts.

And speaking of which, if your taste in oddities runs to the invisible and intangible (i.e. supernatural), you might do worse than to linger longer (perhaps overnight) at the Wolf Creek Inn.  Multiple sources (see below) attest to haunting by ghosts of celebrities, children, pioneers, and other THINGS.  To sample a few:

https://the-line-up.com/wolf-creek-inn

https://traveloregon.com/things-to-do/trip-ideas/favorite-trips/haunted-tales-wolf-creek-inn/

https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/photos/ghost-adventures-wolf-creek-inn

As we expand our bibliography (as yet in the planning stages) other references will be available.  In the meantime, it’s a nice double-attraction for a day trip (only 50 freeway miles from Medford, with back roads available for part of the way).               Click Here for map/directions

Bob