A Place to Call Home

The state borders of Oregon, California, and Nevada intersect in the high desert. If you are like most people, you'd just pass through these parts heading south to Reno or East to Klamath Falls. You might stop for gas in the little town of Lakeview, Oregon, but you probably wouldn't want to stay. There are wind-swept valleys and freezing winters here. There is erratic groundwater and unpredictable soil: first alkaline then sandy then clay. But some people feel the dry desert heat, see the open sky, and decide to call this place home. This is their story.

Welcome to Lakeview sign, Lake County:
Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives

A Place to Retire

Snap, snap. Sharon's house is filled with the sound of Siberian Pea-pods cracking open. The pods dry out quickly in the desert heat, then burst open to release their seeds. She smiles every time she hears one pop. She is planting a maze on her property, and these seeds are the beginning of her 10-year project.

Outside, an elaborate sprinkler system zigzags across rabbit brush and tumble weed. Drip lines lay in wait, ready for the seedling. From the looks of it, Sharon knows what she is doing. But this project and place are new to her. She moved to Lakeview a year ago to retire. Before this, she traveled the world working for an international software company. So why would an intelligent, financially secure woman move to the desert, alone, to plant a maze? In many ways, Lakeview still embodies the spirit of the Wild West, and people like Sharon move here because they can carve out unique, maybe even courageous, retirements.

A Place to Love

Emma probably owns the smallest house in Lakeview, but she has the biggest back yard.   Her property line backs up to BLM land, and thousands of wild acres roll out behind her house. As deer graze in her unkempt yard, Emma talks about why she moved to Lakeview a few years ago,

I fell in love. I fell in love with the landscape, and I fell in love with something about the valley. I just feel like I am home here.

Sagebrush, pinion pine, and Goose Lake brought Emma here, but she plans on staying for other reasons. She thinks this will be a good place to grow old. Lakeview's hospital offers everything from acute care, to surgery, to pediatrics. And for people who need more specialized care, a helicopter can have them at a larger hospital within a half hour.

Let's go outside,Emma opens the door and pulls back her long, graying hair. She has a big backyard to explore as she grows old.

An Unexpected Trend

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Sharon and Emma are part of a growing number of older women who are moving to Lakeview. Most population pyramids narrow out at the top as mortality increases with age, but Lakeview's population shows stability in the number of older residents, especially women. But older women are not the only people relocating to Lakeview.

A Place to Work

Debra's dogs and herd of goats met me before she does. The goats scatter off to find shade, but a beat-up hound dog watches me. He tilts his scarred face to the side and growls until Debra shushed him away.

He is a cougar dog. We just got him, she says from across the porch.

Debra and her husband saw 5 cougars on their property this year, so they invested in a howling warning system. The couple moved to Lakeview a few years ago from California. Now Debra runs a successful butcher shop out of her house. There are a lot of empty storefronts in downtown Lakeview, but businesses like Debra's seem to thrive when they fill a niche. Most people here hunt, and that keeps Debra busy year-round.

A Place to Raise a Family

Isabel's three-year-old daughter sits on her mother's lap, runs to her bedroom to get some toys, rolls around on the couch, then crawls back up on her mother's lap. She is like most three-year-olds, which is exactly why Isabel moved to Lakeview.

Isabel spent 17 years in a large city in California trying to raise her five children on a shoestring budget in a rough neighborhood. She recalls asking her son what his dream was, "I dream that I have a room with a bed, and to sleep in the bed." He had been sleeping on the carpet because they did not have the space or money to buy beds for everyone.

The cost of living in Lakeview is lower than much of Oregon and California, and Isabel was able to rent a large house in the center of town with enough bedrooms for all of her kids. She depends on food stamps and welfare to make ends meet, and in Lakeview she is able to stretch her limited income a lot further than she could in the city. She also likes the slower pace of life here. She says,

It's a small town and you can raise your kids, you know, better"¦

Authored by Carly Johnson, OSU researcher (2007)