Dawson House Lodge

Dawson House Lodge was built in 1929 to serve the new Highway 97 travelers and serve as a boarding house for railroad and highway workers. The hotel had twelve rooms and two bathrooms upstairs. It was called the Hotel Chemult, in those days, and was built by Mr. Dick Dawson. In 1932, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Porter bought the hotel and operated it until 1953, when it was sold to Dick and Virginia Jessup. The Porter’s grandsons and Dick and Virginia, as well as many of our older community residents, have shared many fascinating and colorful stories with us about those early days in Chemult. The town was a bit rough and rowdy, but the community grew and thrived; families based their activities around their children, women formed gardening clubs and the men worked in the woods and for the railroad and went fishin’. The Palmer’s store provided groceries, gas and a Post Office. The hotel gave food and a place to sleep, drink, and gamble a little in a card game.

The face of Chemult remains pretty much the same today; a friendly town, providing food, gas, a post office, an Amtrak stop and a really nice place to stay at The Dawson House! Dawson House Lodge offers unique and quality lodging, unequaled from Klamath Falls to Bend.