Shaniko Ice Cream Shop Hammered by Semi on Sunday night, Aug. 21

The back of the trailer can be seen sticking out of the front of the building above. Courtesy Shaniko Volunteer Fire Department for all photos

By Tom Peterson

The proprietors of the Ice Cream Shop in Shaniko were shaken from their homes on Sunday night, Aug. 21, at 11:30 p.m. when a northbound semi-truck on Highway 97 ran off the highway and drove his entire truck into the restaurant called The 7 Directions.

Location of the 7 Directions ice cream shop.

Alma Cuevas, 21, said she was feeding her 10-month-old daughter Rosalie at the house next door in one of Oregon’s most famous ghost towns, 55 miles south of Biggs Junction, when she heard the initial crash and went outside to see the semi-truck had run entirely through her mother, Sandy Thomas’ shop, 

“I think he fell asleep at the wheel,” she said today, Aug. 22. “His eyes looked very tired. We had to go through the other side of the building to get him out. He cut his hand but that was it.”

“Everybody was surprised he survived,” she said. “Because of how fast he went through there and how those  boards splintered and could have punctured him.”

She said the tremendous noise from the collision brought several people out of their houses, including her mother Sandy. 

Cuevas said the truck went through the entirety of the building, taking out the kitchen, a bathroom, part of the shop, and the main section of the building.

First responders on scene in Shaniko.

“They had to bring in a hazmat team to take care of all of the diesel,” she said.

The driver of the vehicle was taken to St. Charles Medical Center for an assessment, according to the Wasco County Sheriff’s log. 

“He had no idea what was happening,” Cuevas said. “He could hardly speak English but we found he was down from California.”

The Pamplin Family, owners of Pamplin Media Group, are the owners of the building, which was formerly known as Goldies. 

Cuevas said the building is now structurally unsound and people are not allowed to enter it.

“It’s about ready to collapse,” she said. 

She said her mother Sandy might try to open another ice cream shop if she can find another building in the aged town that would work. Shaniko was once the Wool Capitol of the world at the turn of 1900, but has since fallen into decline and is officially recognized as a ghost town.

“That truck went through right where we make sandwiches in the back and where my baby stays when I’m working, and that is where it went through,” Cuevas said. “We were lucky this happened at night.”