In a message dated 11/20/02 9:22:11pm, CBQRR@j... writes:
>The steward would wander
>across the street to a boarding house and spend the night in a real bed.
>The lady who operated the boarding house was unmarried and her last name
>was (I ain't making this up) Spoor.
>
>Can anyone add to this story?
Mike:
You've got my curiosity up, so I'll ask around within the family. I remember
the lunch counter/store (and former hotel/rooming house) across the street
from the Oregon depot but don't recall the woman who ran it in the early
1960s as being named Spoor.
There was, however, a well-known hotel in Oregon in the old days called the
Spoor House. It was downtown across Fifth Street from the courthouse, which
puts it about a mile from the depot. My information has Austin Wright Spoor
coming to Oregon in 1879 and leasing the American House, then moving to the
Sinnissippi House.
On my last trip to Oregon in 1991, Catherine Spoor told me the American House
became part of the Spoor House, and she showed me a planter out front resting
on what is purportedly a locomotive smokestack. The planter itself could be
an inverted steam or sand dome.
Stay tuned.
Bill
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