Why a historic saloon in The Dalles has a huge collection of John Englehart landscape paintings

Published 8:33 am Thursday, February 20, 2025

From the mahogany backbar, to the antique safe, to the building itself dating to 1877, stepping inside the historic Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles is like stepping back in time.

But what grabs the most attention are the 30 original oil paintings — many by landscape artist Joseph John Englehart — covering the saloon’s walls from ceiling to beadboard.

Englehart painted hundreds of realist landscapes of the American West in the late 1800s and early 1900s, though much about the man himself remains a mystery.

He was born in Chicago in 1867 — or at least, that’s what he claimed.

“We’re not entirely sure about his true origins or history,” said Jennifer Thiele, author of “The Lightning Painter,” a book about Englehart. “He moved out to the West Coast, and he claimed he had no written history of his heritage because it was all destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. We couldn’t trace his true origins or tie him to a family back in the Chicago area.”

Thiele tracked Englehart’s movements through census records and local business directories. He traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado as a painter, often staying in saloons and brothels as he made his way.

In fact, Englehart stayed at the Baldwin Saloon for a time in 1903.

“He was known as a lightning painter, because he would very rapidly put out these landscape paintings that varied in size,” Thiele said. “He did Crater Lake, Yosemite, a lot of different scenes that are very recognizable and would sell easily.”

Englehart, it seems, was also something of a hustler. There’s evidence he forged works of more popular painters by taking a postcard image, redoing it himself, and signing it with a fake name spelled similarly to the original artist’s.

“We found that he was actually using 23 different name variations of Joseph Englehart or John Englehart, and then he was also using completely different names,” Thiele said. “Someone speculated that he only painted to earn enough money for his drink and his room, and the drink always came first.”

Englehart did not appear to have any children, though he did leave behind a trail of three wives whom he either divorced or left. He was still technically married to the third when he died alone in 1915 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Oakland, California.

“He was only 47, and my theory is that, due to his heavy drinking and his lifestyle, I think he pickled himself and died young,” Thiele said.

It’s perhaps fitting, then, that one of the largest public collections of Englehart’s art ended up at a saloon.

A history of the Baldwin

The original Baldwin Saloon opened in the 1870s inside the building at the corner of Court and East First streets.

That building was long thought to have been built in 1876, but when The Dalles Commercial Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places, it included a detailed history of the Baldwin Saloon building. That application stated the building actually dated to 1877.

The same application says the building was originally a restaurant, but soon after became a saloon operated by brothers James and John Baldwin.

It’s unclear exactly how long it operated as a saloon, though a reference to “the Baldwin Saloon in The Dalles” appears as late as 1911 in The Oregonian. In later years, the building was used as a steamboat office, a grain warehouse, a seasonal employment office for the State of Oregon and even coffin storage for the nearby Callaway Mortuary.

In 1962, saddle makers Garth and Evelyn Bonney purchased the building and made it the home of Bonney Saddle Shop. When the Bonneys retired in 1991, they sold the building to then married couple Mike Linebarger and Tracey Ramsey, who turned it into a restaurant with the historic Baldwin name.

The new owners removed the acoustic ceiling tiles, exposed the brick walls and restored the original fir flooring. The antique bar counter now found in the restaurant was added to give the place a historic feel.

Ramsey said that her former husband had previously worked at McCormick & Schmick’s and Jake’s Seafood in Portland and that the style of those restaurants inspired the Baldwin. (Jake’s also has Englehart paintings on the walls, Ramsey said.)

“We were looking at old photos of other establishments in that era, and we noticed there were nudes or landscapes,” Ramsey said. “We thought if we wanted to be original, we needed to look for bar nudes or landscapes.”

They collected several nudes and paintings of women in flowing gowns for the bar, including works by Edgar Martin Keller, Astley David Middleton Cooper and Wilbur Hayes.

But the couple fell in love with Englehart’s work after spotting one of his paintings in an antique store. They began collecting his art from auctions and flea markets. Antique dealers around Oregon would let them know when they had one of his pieces.

The collection at the Baldwin includes Englehart paintings of Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and Snoqualmie Falls.

The artwork became such a well-known part of the restaurant, Linebarger had pamphlets printed about their history.

“A lot of people would stop in and get a beer, but they just wanted to see the paintings,” Ramsey said. “I’ve always felt it was a marketing tool.”

Linebarger and Ramsey operated the Baldwin until August 2020, when they sold the building and restaurant to Molli and James Martin, who also own Sunshine Mill Winery in The Dalles.

The paintings, now an iconic part of the restaurant, were part of the sale.

The Martins tried to operate with limited capacity during pandemic restrictions, but the restaurant ultimately closed.

The Baldwin Saloon today

After a few short-lived pop-up iterations, the business reopened in November with new management but under the old Baldwin Saloon name.

The Martins still own the building but Katie Greenhoot now runs the Baldwin with partner Arius Blaze. They took out some of the booths to add space for a pool table, shuffleboard and old-timey bowling arcade game. They kept most of the high-backed booths to provide seating areas for more intimate conversations.

“We wanted to open the place up again, take it back to its roots as a saloon, which is like a community center, basically,” Greenhoot said. “It’s the history of it, you can feel that. So, immediately, we’re working with a platform of that mystique and romance and the history of it.”

And, of course, they kept the paintings.

If you go: The Baldwin Saloon, 205 Court St. in The Dalles, is open 5 p.m.-midnight Wednesday-Saturday. You can find the saloon on Instagram or Facebook at @BaldwinSaloon.

— Samantha Swindler covers features for The Oregonian/OregonLive and Here is Oregon. Reach her at sswindler@oregonian.com.

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