Tiger Town Brewing Co. is another one of the many examples of how craft breweries can revitalize a community.  Mitchell, Oregon is and has always been a very small town.  Centered not far from the geographic center of the State, Mitchell’s population since 1900 has always wavered around the 200-person mark, some years over (especially 1950 when the population soared to 415, though ten years later, it was back down to 236) and some years under.  The 2010 census clocked Mitchell at only 130 people though that number rebounded a bit by 1920 with 160 people calling Mitchell “home”.

HISTORY OPTION #1

There are two stories of how the town got its start.  The story you find in Wikipedia has blacksmith William “Brawdie” Johnson establishing a post office here in 1873.  As the first postmaster, he named the office after Oregon Senator John H. Mitchell. 

Mitchell was in his first term as a senator at the time – he would serve three non-concurrent terms, in all.  His life would turn out to be as scandalous as the second story of the town’s beginnings with bigamy, living under an assumed name and wife desertion all setting the stage for being convicted of using political influence in a land fraud scandal.  The US Senate had started taking steps to expel Mitchell when he conveniently died in 1905.

YOUR OTHER CHOICE

There is a second story of how the town got its start comes from the Tiger Town Brewery website.  A freight wagon was making its way over the new Dalles Military Road running from Fort Dalles in Orgon to Fort Boise in Idaho.  Not unlike railroad companies of the time, the company building the road also received land grants for its part in the development.  The company claimed the road was great for wagons, but those claims were exaggerated.

What eventually turned the route into a useable one was the discovery of gold in the upper John Day valley.  More than 1,000 miners entered the area by 1862, centered around Canyon City.  The large numbers of people, pack trains and freight wagons created a real road.

Back to our one particular freighter.  His wagon, made by Mitchell Wagon Company of Racine, Wisconsin, broke a wheel at the site of the present town along Bridge Creek. He was trying to head up and over the significant Keys Creek summit to the east.  Afraid to leave his cargo – two barrels of whiskey – behind while going off to find a replacement for his wheel, he simply took the nameplate off the wagon. Putting it over his barrels, he started the first saloon in “Mitchell”.  So, this story names the town after a wagon instead of a bigamist, corrupt politician.

MITCHELL GROWS UP

Mitchell grew up in a narrow canyon in three separate parts, the casual tourist sees only one. The business area of town is along Main Street.. Main Street is bypassed by US Highway 26 running on the opposite side of Bridge Creek.  Sitting above on two shelfs separated by a small gully running south from Main Street are the residential areas. The main area is known as “Piety Hill” – named for the Baptist church dating to 1895.  Mitchell’s school is up here, too, a kindergarten through high school arrangement catering to 55-60 students in all.  You find the school gymnasium at the west end of Piety Hill while the school is at the east end.  Dating to 1872, moving to its present location a year later after a fire, Mitchell School was a first for Wheeler County.

Below in the Main Street area, the area was much more rugged in character. Saloons and a brothel catered to the loggers, miners and ranchers coming into the only town in the area. The area became known as “Tiger Town”. Gun fights occurred in the street up until the 1950’s according to some locals.

AND TODAY

Mitchell serves the local cattle industry for the most part today.  Visiting the local mercantile store is stepping back in time to a period before big box stores.  For a little local store, the inventory is vast as it needs to be being the lone place people can buy groceries and other essentials for an hour’s drive in any direction.  Two small motels serve to overnight travelers on US 26.  Like many small towns in a similar isolated location, Mitchell has expanded into tourism to develop a new economic base.  Mitchell had help from the State’s “Seven Wonders of Oregon” publicity campaign in 2014 being the only town within miles of the Painted Hills.  The total eclipse of the sun in 2017 seems to have really imprinted the town on the mind of travelers.

A BREWERY COMES TO TOWN

Enter Tiger Town Brewing. The brewery celebrates a seven year run this year.  Two local Mitchellites, Robert Cannon and Eric Charapata joined by Shawn Hawkins, a passion for music and beer and a vacant old tire shop – the tire shop having moved out from downtown to US 26 – came together to form the Tiger Town brewpub.  Each with a special role to play – construction and maintenance, public relations or brew master – the brewpub with its good beers and food has done wonders for furthering the economic base of the little town.  They employ a dozen or so people which in a town of only 130-150 is significant. 

Following on the beer path others have taken in similar small towns – Fort George in Astoria, Deschutes in Bend, Terminal Gravity in Enterprise, Thunder Island in Cascade Locks and on and on – Tiger Town has grown as large as Mitchell can handle infrastructure-wise. 

THE FUTURE?

The partners are happy with their small two-barrel system.  Their production is just large enough to take care of the needs of their brewpub.  Do not look for Tiger Town beer to come to a grocery store near you in the near future.  They are not looking to turn Mitchell into the next Sisters or – worse, Bend.  They are happy with what they have. 

Mitchell is happy travelers stop by for more than just a chance to peer at the former bear who lived in a cage behind the lone gas station in town – the cage is still there, the bear moved out of town.

So, the next time you are taking in the Painted Hills, one of Oregon’s “Seven Wonders”, stay the night in Mitchell – remember, the best pictures of the Painted Hills are taken around sunset.  Drink some beers while you are chowing down some of their chicken wings.  The beers are too good to drink just one, but too strong to think of a lot of driving after the fact, especially on the mountain roads around here.  Plan correctly and you will have lots of music to enjoy as well.