SHANIKO Ore. (KPTV) – The City of Shaniko has agreed to sell the historic Old City Hall building to a local steward to stabilize the town’s finances amid “a period of fiscal turbulence,” the City announced Tuesday.
Dubbed “Oregon’s Favorite Ghost Town” – the town’s city council held an emergency meeting over the weekend after Mayor Mark Haskett, who doubles as the fire chief, learned of the municipality’s sizeable debt.
Haskett recently began his term as mayor for the town of 30, as of the 2020 U.S. census.
At the emergency meeting, it was revealed that the town owed over tens of thousands of dollars in total to their city insurer and a well drilling and pump service, along with attorney fees.
Lacking sufficient funds to pay off the debt, the town faced the prospect of disincorporating.
However, the town reached an agreement with a longtime resident, Ernie Martin, to purchase the Old Shaniko City Hall building – built in 1901 when the town was incorporated – for $50,000, allowing them to stabilize their finances.
“He’s a natural fit to respect and take of it and the history, and of Shaniko and what that building meant to us,” Haskett said of Martin, who owns and has worked on several other historic buildings in the town.
According to Haskett, the building currently stores EMS equipment on the second level, and is attached to town’s old jail, which is a open to visitors as a tourist attraction. He said Martin plans to keep the building open to the public.
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