Ghost Hunting: Sparta

Sparta lies about thirty miles from Baker City--twenty-one west on Oregon-86 and then northwest about nine miles on the Sparta Road. The main landmark remaining there is the Sparta store, which dates back to 1872. It's apparently being renovated in some fashion--we peered inside and saw modern fixtures and signs of construction.

Like most of these places, Sparta was a mining town. According to Ghost of Times Past, when the Lily White mine's gold ran out, the entrance was dynamited shut with many Chinese workers still inside, thus allowing the mine bosses to avoid paying the workers' salaries. The Lilly Mine entrance is reputed to be haunted, but we didn't go looking for it, as everything in the region except for the road was behind barbed wire marked with Private Property signs.

The book claims that the town was completely "un-populated." If that was true in 1996, it isn't now, as you'll see below.

The Sparta Store.	An outbuilding, with an old truck. This looked like presently occupied property, so we didn't poke around in it.	The best part of the Sparta Store. Jerry was fascinated by the swallow's nests and the millipede-like designs on the keystone. Those shutters creaked in a very authentic fashion when the desert wind blew through them.
Isn't it amazing how much more vivid the sky is when you're not using a $7.99 Kodak disposable camera?	Warning: Fiber Optic Cable Buried Here.	As you can see, there are plenty of people who possess a Sparta mailing address. That orange splotch in the middle distance is the fiber-optic cable sign.
Town Gulch House, a boarding house from 1868 that collapsed under heavy snows in 1989.

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