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| McMenamins McMinnville, Hotel Oregon |
McMinnville, Oregon, as I'm sure I do not have to explain to you, is the county seat and largest city (34,000) of Yamhill County. It has a quaint, very walkable downtown area and is best known today for pinot noirs and space aliens. The city has been the center of Oregon's wine country since the 1990s, with 14 nearby wineries in the region's American Viticultural Area (AVA). The downtown area very much reflects this, with tourist-friendly shops and restaurants that tend to be new and chic (do not look here for a weathered, old dive).
The space alien theme derives from the "
McMinnville UFO photographs," printed on the front page of the McMinnville Telephone-Register and soon reprinted in LIFE Magazine. The city's annual
UFO Festival, sponsored by McMenamins, is now second in size among such events only to the event in Roswell, New Mexico, near the site of a 1947 crash of a
weather balloon extraterrestrial craft of inexplicable, unearthly properties.
These features are celebrated in small elements of the McMenamin's in town, in a four-story (tallest building in town), 1905 structure that has housed everything from a Greyhound bus depot to a banquet hall to a soda fountain. Constructed as the Hotel Elberton and today called the Hotel Oregon, it has a pub on the main floor, a rooftop bar (unfortunately closed during our visit) and a Cellar Bar with a back alley entrance, wine and live music. If you are from the northwest, I need not linger on the details of the decor or food -- it is yet another cozy place preserving a nice historic structure and featuring the paradigmatic McMenamins artwork and bric-a-brac along with solid food and beer options.
310 NE Evans St, McMinnville, OR 97128 - (503) 472-8427
Est. 1999 - Building constructed: 1905
Web site:
mcmenamins.com -
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