The History of the Just-Us Inn
The
Just-Us Inn has a long history in Sherman country. It was built
in 1889 when Wasco was the first county seat; court meetings and trials
were held at the Oskaloosa hotel. The Oskaloosa was built by Levi
Armsworthy. He later sold it to Mrs. D.L. Adams, who then
called it the Western Hotel. The two-story hotel had 19
rooms. A room cost $1.00 a night, and for 25 cents more she
would feed you dinner.
Dora Moore owned the hotel for many years and then sold it to Don
Degrange, whose son, Ken, was ready to tear it down. In
2001, along comes a woman with a very big dream of
restoring this fine Historical hotel to its former glory! Don had
been using it as a storage shed for many years. It took Judi
Ray 3 years just to unload all of the junk from all 19 of the
rooms before she could start her dream. She and her troops
worked on the hotel from 2001 until 2007. When Judy Ray's life
changed, and she could no longer keep the hotel, her family
responsibilities forced her to put the hotel up for sale.
In early summer 2007, an old friend of ours had noticed the for sale
sign while fishing, and mentioned it to us 3 or 4 times in the next
week. So we went for a drive in the gorge, and the rest is
becoming history! In mid-July that year, my husband, Ron,
and I fell in love with the place. Three weeks later we
had bought it.
We named it the "Just-Us
Inn" because it was just Ron and Debbie, and it was justice
that we were able to move out of Portland, part time. Did I
mention that it's haunted? Well, parts of it are, with all the
card games and drinking and trials going on in the old days.
There are many spirits left who are able to make their presence
known, and have done so quite often...