For the week ending Feb. 6, 1910

SAWMILL MEN ARRESTED

In response to complaints filed by Game Warden J.S. Lilly, Henry Linster and H.J. Overturf were arrested last Wednesday on the charge of allowing refuse from their mills to get into the river at Bend. Mr. Linster pleaded guilty and was given the minimum fine of $50. The complaint against him was made for allowing the shavings from his plane to blow into the river.

The charge was brought against Mr. Overturf as manager of the Pilot Butte Development Company’s sawmill. This company burns a part of the refuse from its mill on a low ledge a few inches above the water’s edge. The recent high water reached this ledge and carried away some of the refuse.

WILL WORK STONE QUARRY

Last week J.I. West sold a half interest in his 40-acre tract of stone to Joe Innes, and the owners plan to begin quarrying it just as soon as the necessary tools and machinery can be gotten in. Stone saws, an engine for hoisting and other power purposes, and various other equipment will be ordered at once.

This tract of stone lies just over Awbrey Butte, which adjoins the town in the west. It consists of a beautiful building stone colored with a pink tinge. It is soft and easily worked, and yet a fine stone for building purposes, and will undoubtedly go into the construction of many handsome buildings as the town develops.

75 YEARS AGO

For the week ending Feb. 6, 1935

WINTER PLAYGROUNDS

Only 10 years ago, we recall, it was virtually impossible to buy a pair of skis in Bend. They were in use in Central Oregon, it is true, but only by trout hatchery employees and trappers. R.N. Buchwalter, who had a sports goods store on the corner of Wall and Minnesota, did stock about a dozen pairs of skis one winter, but sold only half of these.

Now, Bend is “ski-minded,” just like the rest of the northwest, and “Telemark” and “Christiania turn” are familiar terms. The possibility of recreation in the white mountains is being realized by communities from Bellingham south to Klamath Falls. Queens of the snow are being elected, and reign over loyal subjects in mountains once considered forbidding and inaccessible during the winter months.

Seattle recreationists migrate weekly to their far-famed winter sports resort at Snoqualmie Pass. Tacoma has its Paradise Valley in Mt. Rainier national park, to which throngs of winter recreationists make weekend pilgrimages. Wenatchee has its winter playground in the Wenatchee national forest, and Yakima goes to American River for its winter outings. With “an hour and a half from roses to skiing,” as their slogan, some 25,000 Portland people recently moved into the majestic Mt. Hood area one Sunday for fun in the Cascade snows. Eugene Obsidians on New Year’s dedicated their new White Branch winter playground in the McKenzie country, with a ski run as one of the major attractions. Medford is developing its winter sports center at Union creek, in the Rogue River national forest.

Skiing in the Bend country has probably developed more rapidly than in any other community of the northwest, due in part to the Scandinavian origin of many residents of this city and in part to the activity of the Skyliners. Recognizing that winter sports are a distinct asset to the community, the Skyliners only this past week made plans for further expansion, with the development of a year-round recreation headquarters on upper Tumalo creek approved by a unanimous vote.

The Forest Service has recognized the part winter recreation plays in community upbuilding and in a number of localities is taking the initiative in building winter playgrounds. “These days,” forest officials say, “are teaching us that the commodity use of timber is not the only forest asset which holds an important place in the life of people and communities.”

50 YEARS AGO

For the week ending Feb. 6, 1960

HISTORY DID NOT BYPASS DESCHUTES AREA, BUT IT LEFT FEW THINGS OF CUB INTEREST

A Cub den mother called the other day to inquire about a place of historic interest where she could take her boys, as a part of their required training. It was a good question, but a quick answer was not ready.

History did not bypass Central Oregon. But it left few markers that would capture the interest of a busy den of Cub Scouts. There are no ruins or forts in the Deschutes country, no shrines of historic interest.

Cubs are of the age when they would like to see history, not hear about it.

Possibly the best place to take Cubs on a history outing would be to the old site of Camp Polk, on Squaw Creek near Sisters. None of the old buildings remain, but in the evening shadows there is an aroma of history in the area where soldiers once paraded and waited for the long winter of 1865-66 to pass.

Camp Polk was occupied by a company under the command of Capt. Charles LaFollette. The camp was established at the time of the Indian uprisings in Eastern Oregon. The Camp Polk soldiers never fired a shot at an enemy.

In the immediate Bend area, all possible shrines of history have disappeared. These include the cabin on the pioneer Farewell Bend Ranch, with its back against a rocky wall. It was a ranch that gave Bend its name.

Two possible shrines within the city limits of Bend have also disappeared. One was the pioneer cabin in Drake Park of the present. There Bend’s first school was taught — if the earlier school in the old John Sisemore home just south of town can be overlooked. A DAR rock and plaque mark the location of the old cabin in the park site.

Also gone is the A.M. Drake lodge. It was a handsome building from which grew a city, Bend.

Peter Skeen Ogden and his trappers passed through in 1825. Nathaniel Wyeth and his trappers moved across the Bend site in 1834, and Captain John C. Fremont and Kit Carson crossed Tumalo Creek just west of Bend in 1843.

Two lost wagon trains wandered over Central Oregon and marked their trails with graves. One was the train of 1845, the other was the big train of 1853, whose leaders mistook the Three Sisters for Diamond Peak. A mother and her babe on that train died at the present Bend site and were buried here.

Chief Paulina and his braves cut a deep trail over the mid-Oregon rangelands. It ended suddenly in a lonely cove on Trout Creek where the chief died under gunfire.

There is plenty of history in the region. But missing are the material things that would interest boys of Cub age.

25 YEARS AGO

For the week ending Feb. 6, 1985

LUTHER METKE AT 100

Luther Metke — logger, builder, philosopher and poet — will be back home in Camp Sherman in time to celebrate his 100th birthday.

The Central Oregon folk celebrity, who received national recognition when a biographical documentary film, “Luther Metke at 94,” was nominated for an Academy Award in 1980.

Until last fall, Metke lived alone in the Camp Sherman community in one of the numerous log houses he built in the past 20 years. He cooked his own meals, kept busy with various hobbies, and occasionally drove his 1958 Ford Mustang to the Camp Sherman Store to pick up the mail and buy groceries.

The award-winning movie noted highlights of Metke’s life and times as a homesteader, an early labor organizer, a bridge contractor, a painter and particularly as a builder of log cabins. He started his last log cabin when he was 92 and finished it when he was 94. At the age of 85, while caring for his wife, he single-handedly constructed an impressive two-story home.

The film also mentioned Metke’s other claims to fame, including his status as Oregon’s last survivor of the Spanish-American war.

Metke was born Feb. 20, 1885, in Buffalo, N.Y., and spent his early years in Minnesota.

At the age of 15, he enlisted in the Navy. He tells stories of adventures in China, when he sailed up the Yangtze River to Peking, and of the battles in the Spanish-American War. He returned from the Philippines on the battleship “Oregon.”

In 1907, he homesteaded at the present site of Sunriver, building a home that he would share with his bride in 1912. His wife, the former Anna Dobbs, was born in Ireland and had come to America at the age of 16.

Her sister, Mary, married Bob DeCourcey, who also had a claim on the Deschutes River near Sunriver.

Metke and DeCourcey built bridges in the area and also worked as loggers. Timber work started to slack off in the 1920s, and they decided to sell out. They moved to Bend, and DeCourcey built the Troy Laundry, which he and Metke operated for several years.

Metke continued to work building roads and bridges and logging, and moved to Camp Sherman in the early 1940s.

In his 80s, he began writing poetry to his grandchildren. His favorite themes were youth, education, ecology and spiritual values.

In 1983, he was Grand Marshall of Bend’s Christmas Pa- rade.

When people ask him the secret of his longevity, he says: “I just had the right parents.”

His philosophy is summed up in one of his verses: “It isn’t what we have, It isn’t what we know. The only thing that matters Is the ‘good will’ seeds we sow.”