Omar Olinger's cabin.	Another view of the cabin.	Omar's cabin and road-side memorial.
A view from the front door of Omar's cabin.	The corral area.	The view looking across Lincton Mountain road. Forest fire smoke in the background.

I haven’t looked around for the barn, as the memorial is on private property and because I think Omar Olinger’s descendents most likely live in the house that sits just over the hill amongst the pine trees.  The old cabin is a one room one with 2 doors and 2 windows and maybe a loft; I’m guessing it was the Olinger family’s original homestead.  There is a piece of sheetrock still nailed to the wall, and the floor is littered with chunks of sheetrock and rusting metal that looks like parts from a stove and bed springs.  I wondered if Omar Olinger knew his murderer, as many murders are committed by someone the victim is acquainted with.  A bit of research revealed that John Omar Olinger is buried in the Milton-Freewater, Oregon Cemetery along with 14 other family members:

John Jefferson Olinger	1845-1913 (68 yrs old)
James Lee Olinger	1861-1933 (72 yrs old)
John Omar Olinger	1872-1919 (47 yrs old)
David W. Olinger	1874-1930 (56 yrs old)
Lizzie A. Olinger	1877-1958 “Mother” (81 yrs old)
Esther Olinger	1878-1943 (65 yrs old)
Frank M. Olinger	1878-1969 (91 yrs old)
Jasper E. Olinger	1880-1970 (90 yrs old)
Lydia V. Olinger	1889-1965 (76 yrs old)
Mable Swearingin Olinger	1897-1968 (71 yrs old)
Melvin Wesley Olinger	1906-1920 (14 yrs old)
Cecil R. Olinger	1909-1939 (30 yrs old)
Mildred N. Olinger	1911-1939 (28 yrs old)
Mildred E. Olinger	1911-1970 (59 yrs old)
Robert D. Olinger	1939-1969 (30 yrs old)
Mary Elanor Olinger	died 6-11-1928 (at birth?)

I do wonder who the “nineteen year old boy” was - a relative, a ranch hand, someone Omar Olinger crossed paths and tempers with at one time?  I imagine back in 1919 the Tollgate area was still considered remote and wild - the main road must have been a rutted dirt one with only a few cabins near it (some of the summer cabins look almost as old as the Olinger’s cabin).  The scenery from the front door of the old cabin is certainly uninspiring - just dry mountains and scattered pine trees.  If that cabin is indeed the family homestead, then the Olinger’s were probably logging, running cattle, and maybe farming wheat to make ends meet.

jlb:March 2005

Russ' Note

I searched the web for references to Omar Olinger and found some additional information:

His full legal name was John Omar Olinger.  He was born on March 22^nd, 1872, the son of John Jefferson Olinger (from Illinois) and Helen Eliza Miller (from Iowa).  (Note that Helen's grave is not in Janet's list above; Helen died on or about February 11^th, 1884 in Milton, Oregon.)

John Jefferson Olinger moved to Oregon somewhere between July 1881 and February 1884, soon after the last of his nine children were born.  There is some information found here, that seems to indicate the Olingers arrived in Milton, Oregon in 1876, but the birth records of the children all seem to contradict this.  His last child was born in Iowa in 1881 and his wife died in Oregon in 1884.  The family must have made the move sometime between those dates; the 1876 date must be a mistake.  It is possible that some of his children moved out to Oregon earlier with he and his wife following later, but there is no evidence to substantiate that theory.

John Jefferson Olinger's children were:

Name	Birth	Death
Lena May Olinger	January 1869	October 1872
Maudie Blanch Olinger	November 1870	December 1887
John Omar Olinger	March 1872	February 1919
David Wallace Olinger	July 1873	May 1930
Jennie Myrtle Olinger	March 1875	January 1957
Nora Ellen Olinger	June 1876	January 1888
Grace Blanch Olinger	August 1876	February 1945
Jasper Elderado Olinger	January 1880	February 1970
Franklin Morton Olinger	July 1881	March 1969

The Olinger's were farmers back in Illinois, and Omar is listed as a farmer in the Oregon census data from around the turn of the century.  Although the Olingers are described as lumbermen, they built a waystation, store, and shop at the timberline on Lincton mountain.  It was their headquarters for many years.  Apparently, they did a little of everything; farming, lumber, ran a store up on the mountain; Frank even helped organize the Famers Security Bank in Milton in later years.

The account of Omar's demise goes like this:

"Omar Olinger, John Olinger's son, ran a family store on Lincton Mountain, when on February 19, 1919, Hary Samuel stopped by.  An argument ensued and Samuel shot Olinger as he was running from the scene.  Samuel grabbed Olinger's body by the feet and dragged it to the barn where he buried it in the manure pile.  Samuel rode his horse back home to Milton."

It seems that fate hunted the Olinger family.  Years earlier, Omar's brother, Frank, had a close brush with death in the Lincton road area:

"On November 9, 1892, 11 year old Frank Olinger was staying the night with Charles H. Petrie in the cabin on Lincton Mountain.  The man and boy were asleep when the cabin was entered by employees of the Fletcher Sawmill of Weston, Frank Fletcher and Peter Gaskill, who shot them and left them for dead.  The boy recovered and Petrie lived to tell the story and to identify the criminals who were later arrested in Milton.  A monument has been erected at the site of the Petrie-Olinger shootings on the Lincton Mountain Road."

It appears there must be another monument somewhere in the area.  It would be quite interesting to see if it could be found.  Could the writer have just gotten confused and attributed the Omar monument to the Petrie-Olinger shooting?