Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at Deschutes County Historical Society.

100 years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 17, 1918

Yank armies coming home

The Rainbow and New England divisions are believed to be likely to return to the United States by Christmas. They were among the first troops to be landed in France.

Secretary of War Baker is of the opinion that all enlistments will close with the end of the war emergency, unless action is taken by congress previous to that time.

Congress will decide on the ultimate size of the standing army and if universal military training is to follow.

The war department officials are in favor of the latter move, but it is feared that public opinion may be against the plan.

Rumors swirl about prince

Rumors continue to be spread regarding the fate of the crown prince. A Berne dispatch reports his body has been found aboard a military train bound for the Dutch border, covered with bayonet and bullet wounds. An official dispatch sent out by the German Wolff bureau declares the crown prince is at the front with his troops. Rotterdam has announced he arrived at Maastricht at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon.

Killed by soldiers

Unconfirmed reports here are to the effect that German soldiers assassinated the former crown prince while he was fleeing to Holland.

A Berlin dispatch declares the workmen and soldiers’ council announced the arrival of the former Kaiser and the crown prince in Holland.

German officers killed by men

LONDON — Neutral travelers arriving here have reported a mutiny as breaking out in a German garrison at Brussels, with the result that several of the officers were killed.

Can use hands and telephone

C. F. Corgan is the inventor of a telephone attachment which will permit the use of both hands while carrying on a conversation through the instrument.

A Portland grocer’s impatience with a telephone instrument that left him but one hand to write on the order pad and hold it in place has led to his invention of an unique device which holds the receiver to his ear and gives him the use of both hands for order taking. He has been given a federal patent on the attachment.

75 Years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 17, 1943

Warriors of 1918 called on to help train new army

Camp Abbot — A stirring challenge to men who served the colors in World War I to “put your shoulders to the wheel” in the present world-wide conflict in which the allies face “a most ruthless enemy,” was presented by Col. Frank S. Besson, ERTC commander, at the Armistice service in the post chapel here yesterday.

“We who are training these men to conquer the foe need all your assistance,” Col. Besson declared.

Col. Besson recalled with pride the valor of the men under arms in France more than two decades ago and said nothing could erase their bravery from American battle flags.

Col. Russell Lyon, commander of the 12th group, a veteran of the third division in the last war, also spoke in a similar vein in which he pointed out that it was necessary this time to crush the enemy.

The silence when the moment came to cease firing 25 years ago was recalled by Col. Aubrey H. Bond, commander of the 11th training group, a veteran of the Third division in the last war. “It is unexplainable, it was so unreal,” he said. Col. Bond, too, paid tribute to those who paid the supreme sacrifice.

Following the ceremony, the Bend veterans were taken on a tour of post activities in which they saw first hand evidence of the stiff training schedule set up by Col. Besson. They were shown these activities by Col. Lyon and S. Sgt. George S. Fly, of the post public relations office.

Save your fats (Editorial)

Though most American women, 96 percent to be exact, know it is said that the government wants their used fats, only 52 percent have actually turned in fats at any time. This the record for the period since July, 1942, when the fat salvage campaign was started. In that period household fat collections have grown from 3,700,000 in August 1942 to 9,065,000 in August 1943, Army and navy camps are saving an additional 6,000,000 pounds a month but the goal is 25,000,000 a month from all sources. In other words 300,000,000 pounds of used cooking fats must be collected for the war effort in the next 12 months.

The need for saving fats and turning them in grows first from the fact that they are needed in the production of munitions and second because former supply sources were cut off when the Japanese occupied the far eastern areas from which we once imported fats and oils.

Someone has said that saving household fats is one of the meanest jobs that government asks women to perform. It is messy unglamorous and ill-rewarded. Nevertheless, its importance cannot be over-emphasized and the woman who saves her every possible tablespoon of used fat and turns it in to her butcher is making a real contribution. She is helping to provide the boys in the front lines with the munitions they need to destroy the enemy.

Save your fats. Turn them in.

50 Years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 17, 1968

Parents spend a day at BHS (By Ila Grant Hopper)

Methods of educating the young have changed considerably in the past 20 or 30 years, but some things are still the same. Your locker combination always jams when you are in a hurry to get to class. There’s a tendency to check the clock just before lunch time. And schools still have that odor — a mix of chalk dust, strange fumes from the chemistry lab, food smells and damp wool socks.

Some 250 parents who attended classes at BHS know more than they did about modular scheduling, team teaching and large-group seminars. They experienced a variety of techniques and physical facilities, in some cases vastly different from their own high school days. For the most part, they felt completely inadequate in some subjects — and thought their children must be bright indeed to understand things like the “property of between-ness” and the distributive principle in modern geometry.

For the most part, adults were attending in the place of students, who received an excused absence for an authorized proxy. But in some cases, the kids just couldn’t stay away. They came along to watch the show. And everybody seemed to be having a ball.

Visitors in the typing classes observed that modern electric typewriters are downright spooky. They respond not only to the lightest touch — but seemingly, to a hard look. And how to adjust the margins and the line spacer remained, too many, a mystery.

Adults attending foreign language classes listened to taped conversations — with expert pronunciation and inflections — with earphones. In the language lab, several tapes were going at once — but students picked up only the conversation intended for their own level — and responded at different times.

A chemistry-physics large group presentation put many of the new teaching aides on display. Illustrations sketched by a teacher as he lectured were projected on a large wall area. A team of several instructors alternating in presenting experiments. Even visitors who didn’t feel capable of overhauling their television sets, after a 45 minute exposure to the wonders of electronics, didn’t go away empty-headed. They learned, for instance, that J.J. Thompson discovered the electron in 1850.

For some, honors English was the most fun. All of a sudden, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, seemed very understandable — sort of like a modern college drop-out who has just too much to cope with. And no one who understands!

For all of the visitors, the day was a success. But not many had the delightful experience of one trim mother who was passed up when papers were passed out. Later, when roll was called, it became apparent that she was substituting for her son. “Sorry,” said the teacher. “I thought you were a student from the other class.” And that, said the mother, was one of the nicest compliments she’d had in years!

25 Years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 17, 1993

Historic Bend sawmill closing

Crown Pacific Ltd. told its employees Wednesday that its Bend sawmill will close permanently on Jan. 10, taking 130 jobs with it.

The closure will mark the end of an era nearly 80 years long in Bend. A sawmill has been operating at that site since 1915.

Bert Larson, business representative for Local 3-7 of the International Woodworkers of America said the closure was expected. On Sept. 8, Crown Pacific purchased the Oregon holdings of DAW Forest Products Inc., then sold the Bend mill site to a development company, which then agreed to lease the site to Crown Pacific.

The loss of 130 family-waged jobs that averaged nearly $20 per hour including benefits is a further shock to the already reeling wood products industry, Larsen said.

“All of us knew the reality that it would come someday, but even though we expected it, it’s a real bitter pill,” Larson said.

Laid-off workers will be eligible for 52 weeks of unemployment.

With the advent of large-scale logging in Central Oregon came two of America’s largest pine-milling plants, Brooks-Scanlon Inc., now the Crown-Pacific mill, and The Shevlin-Hixon Co. on the west bank of the Deschutes River.

Brooks-Scanlon, which moved to Bend from Minnesota, bought the east bank mill from the Bend Company and announced plans for a ponderosa mill on Aug. 18, 1915, according to Phil Brogan’s book East Of The Cascades.

Brooks-Scanlon bought out it’s competitor, The Shevlin-Hixon Company mill in 1950, then sold the mill site in 1980 to Diamond International. DAW Forest Products bought the mill in 1984 and sold it to Crown Pacific in September.