LIFESTYLES
WEEKEND, MAY 27-28, 2017
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Actors point guns at each other in the Shamrock Card Room while simulating a standoff over a poker game during the Pendleton Underground Comes to Life
recently in Pendleton.
History in action
The Pendleton Underground comes to life with the help of actors
“It takes tons
of volunteers.
It’s fun. There
are people you
see every year
when it comes
back together.”
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Melissa Hale played a lot of
different parts during her high
school theater days, but when
she stepped back into acting
last weekend it was for a more
grown-up role.
Hale, who recently moved to
Pendleton from San Diego, helped
Pendleton’s Underground Tours
come to life by playing a working
girl in the Cozy Rooms bordello.
“I had a blast doing it,” she said.
The Underground Tours take
visitors on a journey through the
tunnels that during Pendleton’s
“wild West” days held card rooms,
saloons, brothels, a butcher shop, a
Chinese laundry and more. Once a
year the tours take on a new dimen-
sion by adding 75 live actors.
Some of the actors have been
returning participants for over a
decade, but for Hale it was her first
time getting dolled up like a 1930s
prostitute.
“I researched the hair and make-
up, to make sure I fit the part,” she
said. “The hair was more frizzy
than today. The make-up was very
bold — the red lipsticks and heavy
eyeliner — so it was fun to mess
around with.”
The young women clad in
corsets, pantaloons and fishnet
stockings drew some “playful”
joking from some of the older men
that they might just skip the rest
of the tour to stay there, Hale said,
while others didn’t seem to know
where to look.
“I definitely saw some men
— Tricia Mooney,
Hermiston volunteer who
played a saloon girl this year
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Tour guide Holly Krokosz of Pendleton talks about the underground walkways while giving a tour
of the Pendleton Underground.
trying not to stare,” she said.
Hale and a friend of her sister’s
hung out in the Cozy Rooms’
kitchen, passing out fresh-baked
cookies to guests. They had a loose
script of facts to point out, from
showing off the room’s original
glass tiles to discussing the rise
of Tollhouse cookies, but also got
to do plenty of ad-libbing as they
interacted with tourists.
Prostitution may carry a certain
stigma, but Hale said many of the
women who resorted to working
in Pendleton’s brothels during the
late 1800s and early 1900s had no
family to live with, and there were
few avenues available to single
women back then to support them-
selves.
“It was just a way to earn a
living,” she said.
Women who worked for Cozy
Rooms madam Stella Darby were
paid more than most working girls
at the time, and Darby was famous
for helping teach her girls to budget
and save to enable them to escape
the life as soon as possible.
Dana Grieb, who played Darby
this year, said the madam was
highly respected in Pendleton
despite her line of work.
“She was a real business-
woman,” Grieb said. “She was very
trusted because she was very frank.
She was really trying to help the
girls and not exploit them.”
Darby even helped out the
cowboys visiting her brothel by
offering to hold onto a portion of
their money for the duration of their
visit to Pendleton so that they didn’t
drink and gamble it all away.
Grieb has been participating in
the Underground Tours Comes To
Life day for the past 10 years, as
a can-can dancer in the saloon or
a working girl. Tourists may flirt
with those actresses, she said, but
they took on a more serious and
respectful attitude with her this
year.
“I feel like I got a promotion,”
she said.
Grieb said hanging out with the
other actors and interacting with
tourists is always fun, but each
room is a different experience.
In earlier rooms the tourists are
See UNDERGROUND/4C
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Melissa Hale of Pendleton hands out cookies to guests while portraying a working
girl in the Cosy Rooms bordello in Pendleton.
Mark Odegaard of Hood River and Sharon Hull of The Dalles act out a scene in the
Empire Meat Co. section of the Pendleton Underground Tours.