Towns die for innumerable reasons. Whether changes in transit, the advent of the automobile, railroads or highways rerouted, or natural disasters, floods and fires. Chaos is another cause: Narrows, Oregon, was nearly eaten whole by jackrabbits until a bounty was placed on their ears; early Paisley never quite recovered from a failed payroll robbery that left one dead and the locals shaken. Swallowed by neighboring towns or cursed by events, others cede by choice, communal suicide, with residents agreeing to move on instead of further toil.
Maybe sadder are towns that don't realize they're dead, yet. Youth leaving for better opportunities elsewhere, generations erode until only old-timers sitting on sun-bleached porches remain. More abundant than ghost towns, dying towns receive few tourists; no one wants to view the terminal patient but the wake.
Central Oregon is an inhospitable landscape, making early migrant settlers some of the most stout in American memory. But the arid climate also preserves much of what they left behind - What Remains - on the high desert, hillsides and grasslands. Oregon is speckled with dozens of failed mining and/or forgotten towns, leaving us to wonder why a decrepit barn is so beautiful; have we learned from their mistakes?
Leaving Bend at pre-dawn before a mighty winter storm hits there are tumbleweeds blowing across Highway 97. How cliché - Going on a ghost town tour and Hollywood's symbol of desolation is raking before our headlights. Our goal is to see such places not in spring or summer but winter, when settlers felt the full wrath of Central Oregon. A 100-mile northeastern swoop, weather permitting, we pass the silent Madras stock auction yards at first light.
