Hines, Oregon

While the condition of the sign suggests otherwise, this store is still open for business. Unfortunately, it was closed for the day when I rolled by. I assume, this is where locals can always find a used banjo, if they get that yearning to learn.

This building was obviously of importance at some point in Hines’ history. It overlooks the city park in the center of town. Now, it appears to offer storage: the bottom level appears to be a garage and is filled with various vehicles, campers and such.

I’m not sure why, but this building still haunts me. I’ve always love abandoned buildings, but this one was just too much for me. It is so massive, so long and so tall. It could house a city ten times the size of Hines, could be a city itself, with housing on one side, schools, stores and manufacturing in the other, skateparks, roller rinks, venues, markets and merry go rounds down the middle. It really is that big, not just long but tall. “The building is 85,284 square feet…approximately 836 feet long and 114 feet wide. From the center to the top peak of the building is approximately 86′ feet.” Of course, it’s not just the potential for the future that bothers me. In fact, maybe the idea of doing something with this is just silly; that’s why it didn’t sell; it’s just too big for anything in a small town. Maybe it’s the past that makes it so haunting, the idea that so much had to go into this, and so many people had to have spent their lives working here. And it’s not just their past; it’s my own. It’s too much like places from my own past, and I don’t know what to do with all that. I want it to somehow be remembered for what it really was. Idiots like me write books and others make movies but they never really seem to get it right because most of them weren’t really there and the ones that were have to condemn or politicalize or romanticize everything. Or maybe that’s just me. But maybe that’s why I have mixed feelings when I see developers making something new out the old industrial. It’s really not mixed feelings, it should be or it should be positive, but honestly it’s not. And now I finally understand why. Because even though it’s great, it seems exploitative somehow; dishonest like some sort of cover up, what’s the word for that. Whatever that word is, that’s all I’m saying. The truth is important. Go ahead and build it up. Go ahead and tear it down. “11.19 acre building site, 80 acre mining site!!! Local Hines Oregon mining business up for sale. This is located in the commercial industrial park of Hines. The building itself was part of the old Edward Hines Lumber Mill. It was built in 1929 with local pine.”