Fort Rock Homestead Village Museum — Attraction in Oregon

Over a century before now somewhere on the bare surface of a planet, cold, alone... on the edge of a primordial sea, a colony was established beside the remains of an underwater volcano that blew apart before humans existed.

There's human's remains from an ocean away buried in the ground here, people from another hemisphere who settled here in an act of hubris, an act of pride, an act of faith in a God never before known to the quiet of this scrub covered land, these jackrabbits and coyotes, cougars and eagles, of coarsely strewn hard hard scrabble rocks, and dust.

A collection of clapboard constructions stands in the moon and electric pole light, cross topped painted white or bare wind grained and cracking.

They're ghosts here as a museum to their memory, preserved by the side of a desperately tenuous two lane County road, faded yellow lines down its spine, shotgun holes in speed trap highway signs, a bar off to the side, raging slogans on tattered political signs, bitterness sleeping through the frozen nights, machine gears waiting for summer in the...

We visited while on a motorcycle ride and enjoyed the great care this group has put into preserving and displaying the history of the area. Largely it's a very safe visit to make at this time since the majority of the museum is outside or dispersed enough that social distancing is easy to maintain. We had a concern with an employee who refused to wear a mask while we were inside checking in and paying and, once it was brought to the attention of the Board, swift action was taken to ensure that person would no longer put the public in danger. I feel confident that Fort Rock Homestead Museum is now an even safer place to visit. Definitely worth a stop and a great museum to support!

Edited for stars and content to reflect the appropriate and caring response from the museum board regarding my safety concerns. This is a good org to support so please stop by if...

Went here when it was closed (we were passing by Fort Rock on a road trip) so we just admired the buildings from the outside. The whole area is fenced all around with barbed wire and we saw it was alarmed, to keep unauthorized access away!

I'm pretty sure it would have been great if we had seen it open, and I love to see preserved old places!

We were pleasantly surprised that a black cat came greeting us from inside one of the structures. The cat was very friendly! I don't know if this cat was a resident of the homestead museum but I do hope whatever is the case, that the cat is well taken cared of! If she does hang out in the museum, given that the museum is devoid of people for much of the time, even much of any day, she must be very glad whenever people come...