100 years ago

For the week ending May 13, 1906

GETTING OUT TIES

There is abundant evidence that there will be actual railroad construction in the Deschutes valley during the coming summer. Last week a party of people from Bend were traveling up the Deschutes and at a point about two miles above Rosland saw piles of freshly hewn ties; at this point the survey of the Oregon Eastern is within a few rods of the stage road.

It will be remembered that the Oregon Eastern as now projected will extend with its main line from Natron to Ontario with branches leaving the trunk line somewhere in the Walker basin country, extending south to Klamath Falls and north to Madras.

A few weeks ago Phillip Francis, the freighter, received a proposition from the construction department of the Southern Pacific to submit bids for ties to be delivered between Bend and Rosland. Mr. Francis has secured options on considerable tracts of jack pine timber, suitable for making ties, in the vicinity of Bend, though he has not made actual arrangements with the company for their delivery.

A report from The Dalles dated May 3 states that condemnation proceedings have been commenced by the Oregon Trunk Line to acquire right-of-way along the Deschutes River. This company has purchased a strip of land through most of the region between the mouth of the Deschutes and Madras, but satisfactory arrangements could not be made with many of the owners.

75 years ago

For the week ending May 13, 1931

OLD CASH BOX YIELDS MONEY

Maybe there is gold in ”them thar hills,” under massive crags of granite, but right here in Bend there was currency under slabs of marble up until this morning, when carpenters continued their work remodeling the old Grand theater on Bond street into a pool hall.

Shortly after 8 o’clock, several of the carpenters started dismantling the glass encased booth in front of the theater. Under one of the slabs of marble over which the theater cashier took in money and handed out change for many years were a number of greenbacks. The currency was exposed to view for only a moment. By the time a passerby had counted one $10 and a $5 bill, the currency had disappeared and the carpenters nonchalantly continued their work, probably $30 richer than when they took up their tools this morning.

O.M. Whittington of the Bend Theaters Inc., is at loss to know how the currency got under the marble. So far as he knows, the slab is the same which covered the cashier’s counter back in 1919, when he first came here, and was in place several years before 1919.

The money might have been pushed back under the marble slab by the action of the cash drawer. And again, it might have been placed therein many years ago by some person who was seeking a hiding place for some extra currency, it is pointed out. Just why it should have been left there remains a mystery.

Carpenters working on the old theater building were not talking for publication today, but passersby noticed that several were softly whistling happy tunes.

50 years ago

For the week ending May 13, 1956

HISTORY OF BEND REGION TRACED TO YEAR OF 1874

In the year 1874 an unknown rider made his way into the isolated interior country of Oregon, sighted the Deschutes at the present site of Bend and, in his range land way, said: ”This is the spot.”

But he was hunting a spot for ranch headquarters, not for the location for a city. And he apparently liked the green splashes of meadows adjacent to the river – and the accessibility of that river in providing water for stock.

That unknown ghost rider of the ranges certainly was not a mythical being.

On October 21, 1874, at the U.S. Land Office in The Dalles he submitted a declaratory statement of his intention to file on the land where much of Bend of 1956 now stands.

He was the first person ever to claim land in the area, in its reach from Awbrey Height slopes to the base of historic Pilot Butte.

That rider’s statement was given the U.S. Land Office number of 2896, Oregon City series. Settlement was alleged on July 11, 1874, three months prior to the filing of the statement.

All attempts made through the U.S. Land Office in the Dalles in earlier years to ascertain the name of the ghost rider of the Deschutes who filed on the range land site of Bend failed.

He remains known only as No. 2896.

It is presumed that the townsite homesteader of long ago was a stockman, or a rider for some stock outfit to the north, who sought summer range and water in the upper Deschutes country.

There is little possibility that he was seeking a homesite, for in those days the area was virtually inaccessible in the winter months.

Homestead No. 2896 was relinquished at various times. Amendatory declarations of filings by other homesteaders gradually encompassed practically all on the southern part of Bend.

There is a possibility that Bend’s first settler never spent a night here, unless he spread his blankets under the stars, and listened to the Deschutes as it swept past willow fringes preparatory to its plunges into the rocky canyon below Portland Avenue bridge of the present.

25 years ago

For the week ending May 13, 1981

PILOT BUTTE – A PIONEER BEACON

Pilot Butte, at the eastern city limits of Bend, is a landmark that guided the early emigrants – and the fur trappers and explorers before them – to a watering and camping place on the Deschutes River.

Standing alone, directly in front of The Sisters, the cinder cone could be sighted for miles across the sagebrush plans. On some early maps it was called Red Butte, because of its characteristic color, but the name Pilot Butte came into popular use because of its unique function as a traveler’s beacon.

The butte, now the central feature of a state park, was given to the state Sept. 30, 1928, as a memorial to the late Terrance Hardington Foley in tribute to his value as a pioneer and a citizen. He died in April 1925 in an automobile accident.

Two rows of automobiles lined the crown of the butte for the deed presentation ceremony that blustery September Sunday, according to an account in The Bend Bulletin. Mrs. Charles A. Brown of Chicago presented the deed to Governor I.L. Patterson. The property had been purchased by F.R. Wells, Kempster B. Miller, and Charles A. Brown, business associates of Foley’s.

The butte has an elevation of 4,139 feet. The road to the top, affording a spectacular viewpoint, was completed April 30, 1927.