Juntura, Oregon: The Shoe Tree

One of dozens of similarly chosen trees scattered across America, into which people feel compelled to hurl their shoes.

Shoe Tree - Lucky's Shoes

My husband pointed out the Shoe Tree to me on a trip to Payette, Idaho to visit our son-in-law in May of 2002. My husband passed away in late 2002. I looked forward to stopping by the tree on my trips to see our kids. I took a pair of my husband's boots on a trip to Idaho and the grandkids painted the boots and put a special reminder of their Grandpa on the boots and we hung them on the Juntura Shoe Tree. His name was Lucky and we snapped pictures of the shoes.

Sure miss that old tree and am looking forward to finding the new one in that area so we can put another pair of Lucky's boots among the branches.

[Brenda Gay, 06/03/2011]

Shoe Tree

The shoe tree in Oregon was burned down by vandals mid-2010. I'm sad, my family would stop there every year at least once on the way to CA from WA, sometime mid spring - mid summer it was burned down. It's a shame, nothing fun seems to last anymore. A favorite landmark is gone forever.

[Danielle Goforth, 01/05/2011]

Shoe Tree

I emailed a letter to my friends lamenting the fact that I could not find the shoetree on Rt 20 in Eastern Oregon. To my surprise, I got a response from my friend Judy (a woman who can find anything) with a link to RoadsideAmerica.com....

So, while I am so sad about the shoe tree, I am also happy to know what happened, and that I am not crazy.

Here are photos shot in Oct. 2008 of the three new shoetree wannabe sites along the same stretch of road.

[Mindy Cambiar, 11/04/2008]

Shoe Tree

I drove past this location on 12/22/07 and the tree is gone. There was an Oregon Department of Transportation dump truck parked next to the site and they were filling the truck with the remaining shoes (The truck was full!) I know that a week earlier the tree was still standing, as some coworkers had driven by on the way from Boise. When I was by in April the tree was looking quite dead, so I guess the recent snow of this year mixed with the weight of the shoes was too much.

I trust another will "grow" along the same route.

[David Huyg, 01/11/2008]

Shoe Tree

I was driving my pick-up eastbound across Oregon, taking a cooler northern route meandering to Arkansas. I had to backtrack 3 miles, finding a turn-around for this tow rig by the shoe tree.

[Carolyn M. Donegan, 12/18/2007]