Diamond Craters.

Diamond Craters is a geologically youthful lava field 52 road miles south-southeast of Burns in sou…

Diamond Craters is a geologically youthful lava field 52 road miles south-southeast of Burns in southeastern Oregon. The lava field, which encompasses 27 square miles, comprises chiefly pahoehoe (PAH-hōey-hōey), the smooth, ropy-topped lava best known from Hawaiian flows (the other common lava type, rough 'a'a full of clinkers, is sparse). …

Enchanted Forest.

The Enchanted Forest theme park in Turner, Oregon, just south of Salem off Interstate 5, has been a…

The Enchanted Forest theme park in Turner, Oregon, just south of Salem off Interstate 5, has been a favorite roadside attraction for generations of Oregonians. It was the dream of Roger Tofte, whose job as a young draftsman at the State Highway Department in Salem did not allow him to …

Hole in the Ground.

Hole in the Ground is a spectacular bowl-shaped volcanic crater located on the western edge of the …

Hole in the Ground is a spectacular bowl-shaped volcanic crater located on the western edge of the Fort Rock Basin and at the southern margin of lavas from Newberry Volcano. In maximum dimension, the crater is a mile across, with a depth of over 500 feet. It is located …

Jordan Craters.

Jordan Craters is an otherworldly place, beautiful and foreboding, an outdoor museum of recent basa…

Jordan Craters is an otherworldly place, beautiful and foreboding, an outdoor museum of recent basalt volcanism amid sagebrush steppe rangeland. Located about eighteen miles northwest of the town of Jordan Valley, Jordan Craters is near the geographic boundary between the southeastern High Lava Plains and the western Owyhee Uplands …

Last Blockbuster Video Store in the U.S..

At its height in 2004, the video rental store chain Blockbuster had over nine thousand locations in…

At its height in 2004, the video rental store chain Blockbuster had over nine thousand locations in the United States. By summer 2018, that number had dwindled to one—in Bend, Oregon. Hit hard by the rise of video streaming services, DVR (digital video recorder) technology, and alternative DVD delivery models …

Oregon Vortex (House of Mystery).

The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery, located on Sardine Creek in Gold Hill, is one of Oregon’s o…

The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery, located on Sardine Creek in Gold Hill, is one of Oregon’s oldest and most original examples of Roadside Americana. Opened to tourists in 1930, the attraction is the earliest documented mystery spot or gravitational hill in the United States—a place where bubble levels, …

Petersen Rock Garden.

Petersen Rock Garden is a unique folk art environment in central Oregon that has drawn visitors fro…

Petersen Rock Garden is a unique folk art environment in central Oregon that has drawn visitors from around the world since 1938. It was the creation of Rasmus Christian Petersen, who built the attraction single-handedly beginning in 1935 until his death in 1952. The four-acre site, which is open to …

Prehistoric Gardens.

Prehistoric Gardens, with its twenty-foot-tall concrete Tyrannosaurus greeting travelers a few mile…

Prehistoric Gardens, with its twenty-foot-tall concrete Tyrannosaurus greeting travelers a few miles south of Port Orford on Highway 101, has been a successful commercial roadside attraction for over six decades. Along a winding path through a dense forest of spruce and sword ferns, twenty-three life-size sculptures of dinosaurs and other …

Pronto Pups.

A Pronto Pup is a popular fast food invented in Oregon and marketed nationwide, beginning in the 19…

A Pronto Pup is a popular fast food invented in Oregon and marketed nationwide, beginning in the 1940s. It consists of a hot dog impaled on a stick and deep-fried after being dipped in a cornmeal-based batter. Pronto Pups were the brainchild of George Boyington, who founded a successful Oregon …

Scappoose Peace Candle of the World.

The Peace Candle of the World is a distinctive landmark on Highway 30, near the southern boundary o…

The Peace Candle of the World is a distinctive landmark on Highway 30, near the southern boundary of the Lower Columbia River town of Scappoose, Oregon. Fifty feet tall and eighteen feet in diameter, the Candle was initially coated with 45,000 pounds of multicolored wax and topped with a …

Sea Lion Caves.

Eleven miles north of Florence on U.S. Highway 101 are the remains of an ice-age beach of seafloor …

Eleven miles north of Florence on U.S. Highway 101 are the remains of an ice-age beach of seafloor basalt, where waves hit fracture zones in the hard basalt to carve what is now Sea Lion Caves, the largest sea cave in the United States and one of the largest in …