CATEGORY: LATE CHILDHOOD
PHOTO: JOHN SILVERTOOTH AND HIS SALOON IN ANTELOPE
SECOND PHOTO: ENTERING ANTELOPE FROM THE WEST
THIRD PHOTO: THE ROAD BETWEEN SHANIKO AND ANTELOPE

Something we children loved to do when we lived at Shaniko was to go to Antelope.  Sometimes, Pat’s mother, Glade, took us and sometimes our mother took us.  Antelope was a tiny town only six miles from Shaniko, and it was older than Shaniko, going back to 1871.  That was only six years after the end of the Civil War.  If Abraham Lincoln had lived, he might have been a visitor.  It was a genuine old western cow town.  The valley had been named Antelope Valley because of the herds of antelope that once roamed there, and the town was named after the valley.

One big attraction in Antelope was that, unlike Shaniko, it was a pretty town with lots of trees and a creek running through.  Another was the Antelope Saloon and its owner, John Silvertooth. The saloon wasn’t very wide but it was long; it took up a whole half of a city block: that is, if there had been city blocks in Antelope.  Along one side of the interior there was a long bar with a matching back bar which had been shipped around Cape Horn.  The back bar contained an elaborate super-length mirror.

Mother would probably never have let us go into a saloon, but this one seemed more like John Silvertooth’s living room that he had personally invited us into.  Besides, it was always empty when we were there, it being daytime, so it seemed harmless enough.  Another attraction was that it opened at one side into a space that had once been a barber shop but was now a museum.  It was John’s own museum and contained all kinds of fascinating things: fossils and rare rocks, Indian artifacts such as arrow heads, beaded moccasins, headbands, and a cradle board.  There were old ranching tools and kitchen equipment.

John was tall, dark and very handsome, although his hair was beginning to turn gray.  His name indicated that he probably had Indian blood, giving him that additional air of romance.  And he was articulate!  He liked to tell stories.  He also liked my mother and became especially expansive when she was there.  He would take us into the saloon from the museum and show us where all the bullet holes were.  He would then tell us the story of how each one got there, who did the shooting and who was shot.  He would act out the scene and almost lie on the floor to demonstrate the position of the victim.  We girls loved this performance and would egg him on by asking questions, even though he may have already answered them.

Antelope later became famous as the town the Rajneeshees took over for a short time in the 1980’s when the Bhagwan bought the Big Muddy ranch and filled it with homeless people from Chicago and New York dressed in rainbow colored saris.

Such was the varied and colorful life of a bullet riddled town in a place where the deer and the antelope play.