Internet darling sees collapse of big plans

HALFWAY, Ore. – The auctioneer’s hammer has fallen on the fairgrounds of this remote mountain town, once known as the world’s first Internet city.

During the dot-com boom, the town struck a deal with an Internet marketing company called www.half.com and temporarily changed its name to Half.Com. Known as the world’s first virtual city, Half.com drew visitors and money – including half the funding for a fairgrounds pavilion.

On Friday, more than two dozen of Halfway’s 345 residents gathered at the Baker County Courthouse in Baker City and looked on glumly as the sheriff auctioned off the 1920s era fairgrounds to satisfy the fair association’s debt.

Some of the same people were also present last December, when Halfway lost its four-year-old fair pavilion in an identical sale. The fairgrounds sold for $202,354.76 to Portland attorney Gary Bullock – who earlier bought the pavilion for $375,000. Bullock is representing the fair association creditor, Willamette Valley Construction Financing and Collection Service of Portland.

La Grande contractor Mike Becker built the $881,000 pavilion in 2001, after he got approval from then-fair board President Ralph Smead, who had received roughly half the grants for the construction and apparently expected that more grants would follow.

As the Internet bubble burst, Halfway’s appeal waned – and the grants never came.

In 2003, Becker sold a promissory note he had received from Smead to Willamette, which began foreclosure proceedings.

Rancher David Bird, the director of the county fair board, said the foreclosure is a reminder to other rural communities to never allow a group of people to take over decision-making on a major construction project without community consensus.