Adrian 8/28/26

It may still be August, but it’s football season, so it was time for a road trip.  And what better road to take a trip on than the longest road in the country? Highway 20 is 3265 miles long.  506 of those miles are in the state of Oregon, and our destination  was only slightly less far away than that.

If you take that highway to within a mile of the Snake River before heading south for another fifteen miles or so, you will come to the town of Adrian.  The site of present-day Adrian is right on the banks of the Snake River along what was known as the Snake River Cutoff of the Oregon Trail, which ran along the south side of the river, eliminating the need for a river crossing, which was always treacherous.

Adrian is on the western bank of the Snake, but just across the river is the only sizeable place where the river doesn’t form the boundary between Oregon and Idaho, so if you cross the Adrian Bridge just south of town you still have to travel through a couple miles of Oregon farmland known as the Big Bend before you reach the border.

The Holly brothers homesteaded in the Big Bend area around the turn of the 20^th century, on the east bank of the river, and by 1913 they had a post office, named Riverview.  Meanwhile, Reuben McCreary heard rumors that a railroad was to be built along the old Snake River Cutoff route on the other side of the river.  He quickly platted a townsite, giving the railroad a right-of-way through his property.  His town was originally also called Riverview, but when the movie Rocky came out in 1976 the citizens decided to change the name to take advantage of the sudden popularity of Rocky’s girlfriend’s name.  Or at least that’s what I’d always assumed.  After doing a little research it seems that Mr. McCreary changed the name himself in 1914, naming it after his birthplace in Illinois.  So, the name actually has no connection at all with Rocky Balboa, which is a little disappointing.  Yo! Adrian! 

Over the next several years irrigation projects led to an increase in the population, and the Holly brothers eventually picked up and moved across the river to the new town of Adrian.  Sadly, Reuben McCreary died in 1922, before seeing the complete fruition of all his plans.  His wife was unable to pay the mortgage, the bank foreclosed, and all of the McCreary lands were lost.  The misfortunes of the McCreary family notwithstanding, the town continued to grow, a high school was opened in 1939 and  in 1972 it was finally incorporated.  Benefitting from the water supplied by the Snake River to the east and the Owyhee to the west, the surrounding farmland is fertile ground for potatoes, sugar beets, corn, onions, and other crops that I couldn’t identify.  These days Adrian is also home to a powerhouse 8-man football team that happens to be the 2-time defending state champions, and it was time for Ednold to jump on that bandwagon.

Adrian didn’t have much to show for their first 75 years of football, but since 2014 the Antelopes have appeared in five state championship games, winning them all, including back-to-back championships over the past two seasons.  They compete in 1A – Special District 4 with other small schools from eastern Oregon, and this opening non-league game looked to be competitive, as they would be hosting the visiting Tri-Valley Titans from Midland, Idaho, who reached their own 1A state championship game last season and have moved up to the 2A classification for this year.

But first things first.  As many of you know, my supply of rocks has been running a little low.  I hadn’t thought this trip would be the perfect opportunity to replenish my stash until I saw the Rock Store on Hwy. 201 just north of Adrian.  Fortunately, we had enough time before the game to run in and check out their selection, but it looks like I’ll be returning home with no more rocks than I already had. 

Strangely, rocks may be the only thing you won’t find there.  It’s a gas station with a little general store that seems to specialize in fishing tackle.  I could have picked up my hunting license there if I’d been so inclined.  There’s a little restaurant place serving up pub classics, and a taphouse out back where you can relax under the awning with a cold drink on a hot day, which is what we chose to do.  The Rock Store was built in 1933 with a façade of volcanic rock and petrified wood and was recently entered in the National Register of Hisoric Places.  It’s quite an institution in the Adrian area and, rocks or no rocks, we were glad we’d stopped. 

I was concerned that we hadn’t left ourselves enough time to explore the whole town before the game started, but I needn’t have worried.  It took us about 2 minutes to drive down every street in town and see every sight there was to see.  The highlight, in my opinion, was the impressive Far-Eastern Oregon State Capitol/Adrian City Hall building on 1^st Street.  We considered taking a tour of the interior of the building, but decided against it and made our way to the north end of town and Adrian High School.

The school sits on a small plateau above the rest of the town, with the football field back around to the east.  We drove up High St. to where it turned into a gravel parking lot, right past the old lady sitting in her car who was the gatekeeper for the evening.  She managed to flag us down and politely took our $8 and gave us a roster in return.  It’s it small parking lot, but we were early enough to snag a convenient spot, though by the end of the game there were more vehicles than I would have thought possible in a town of 150  people. 

The grandstand was much nicer than I was expecting, given the size of the school.  It’s concrete with comfortable wooden benches, and Mrs. Ednold picked out a couple of prime seats in the middle of the Antelope faithful.  A newish rubber running track separates the grandstand from the field, and the lush green natural grass of the field was in pleasant contrast to much of the surrounding brown countryside.

The visitors’ seating on the south side of the field isn’t quite as big or nice as the home grandstand, but they were from Idaho, so they might have thought it was pretty luxurious.   Lighten up Idahoans.  That was a joke, and a pretty funny one if I do say so myself.

It was still in the 80s as the Antelopes and Titans took the field; a perfect August night for a football game.  The fact that the ‘Lopes, as they are affectionately known, had only four substitute players was a little surprising, and the additional fact that their opponents had three times that number made me wonder if maybe they’d wish they had a bigger squad before it was all said and done.   

That was before the ‘Lopes jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and extended that lead to 38-12 by halftime.  They just have some studs, and probably would have been fine with no substitutes at all. They’re big, fast, strong, and well-coached, and it was the visiting team that had trouble keeping up. 

With the game seemingly well in hand, I made the short trip up to the concession stand at the east end of the grandstand.  Where but a high school football game can you get a build-your-own, fully-loaded hamburger fresh off the grill for $5 and sit in the middle of a bunch of ‘Lopes fans in the still-warm air under a fading sun with the Snake River running by just a few hundred yards away?  Nowhere, is my guess.

There were no cheerleaders, no band, no homecoming ceremony or other special celebrations on this night.  There was nobody walking around in a goofy Antelope outfit high-fiving the kids.  So, there wasn’t much to do during halftime but finish my snack, make a leisurely lap of the track and take in the atmosphere.  Would a band or some cheerleaders have livened things up a bit?  Sure. But Adrian is one place where the team on the field is good enough that you really don’t need much else.

Those Antelopes in their hunter green uniforms lost little time extending their lead in the second half, and when they made it 50-12 midway through the third quarter the clock mercifully ran non-stop for the remainder of the game.  Even that didn’t stop them from scoring again to make the final score 58-12, and their campaign to win a third straight state championship is off to a flying start.

Adrian is a really nice place to visit. It's got a great football team, a big river, a Rock Store just up the road, and is home to the Far-Eastern Oregon State Capitol building and a lot of really nice people. Could I live there? Absolutely. Would Mrs. Ednold come and visit me once in a while with her new husband? Probably, but that's not an option. And with those thoughts in my head we headed The Bucket back out into the dark far-eastern Oregon night.