09.12.07

Build it and they will come

Posted in Festivals and Vending at Shows, Knitting at 6:32 pm by Lynette

My biggest fear once I found out that the Shaniko Preservation Guild was going to go ahead with my Wool Gathering idea is that no one would come. After all, as I’ve said before, Shaniko is in the middle of nowhere. Two and a half hours from Portland, 2 hours from Bend and a couple hours from Idaho.

The reason for Shaniko is because of wool. In the early 1900’s they were known as the Wool Capital of the World. In fact the reason Pendleton is located where it is is because of Shaniko. The railroad would leave Pendleton and travel to Shaniko where is would pick up thousands of tons of sheared fleeces from the wool barn.

It might not look like much now but that barn in the background was once 2 football fields long. It is half it’s size now with 50 foot ceilings and has the feeling of a haunted tyrolean castle.

I didn’t know what to expect last Friday morning as we walked into it for the first time. It was….empty, vacant, echoing but remarkable did not smell like an old barn.

You could say I had no vision. I could not see how the above cavern would come to life with wool, fleeces, yarn, felt batts, spinning wheels and people. But it did. It started with a trickle of vendors. As they walked in they had a much better vision of what it would become.