Cottonwood Canyon Experience Center / SIGNAL | Architecture + Research

This story begins around the fin-de-siecle, when Jim Murtha, an Irish immigrant, partnered up with Frank Monahan to start a sheep operation at what would become known as the Murtha Ranch. Business peaked during the Great War when the army needed blankets, but life in the windy Cottonwood Canyon changed after the depression, and the barn went empty. Years later, Oregon State Parks was donated the 8,000-acre private property nestled against the John Day River.