Yesteryear

Compiled by the Deschutes County Historical Society from archived copies of the Bulletin at the Deschutes Historical Museum.

100 years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 23, 1919

Shevlin-Hixon company to give land for parks to Bend

Through the munificent gift of The Shevlin-Hixon Company, the people of Bend are to have a park which will include one of the most beautiful spots in this section. There will also be preserved for the benefit of the public another beautiful timbered location and the strip of timber along The Dalles-California highway through the company’s land which will save it from the desolation which has already overtaken the section of the road nearer town.

The park is to include the Tumalo canyon from the fish hatchery to the national forest boundary and will be dedicated as a memorial to the late Thomas L. Shevlin, first president of The Shevlin-Hixon Company, famous Yale athlete, prominent timberman, and friend to Bend and Central Oregon. In the main its side boundaries will be the top of the canyon walls but wherever the road to Broken Top is not too far from the canyon it will be included in the park area.

To make the gift possible the company will be obliged to secure the title to sections of the canyon floor now owned by The Bend Company, L.B. Baird, Chas. Orewiler and A.J. Davidson and negotiations for the purchase have already been begun. All, it is understood, on learning of the use to which the property is to be put have shown a desire to cooperate by placing the lowest possible price on it.

All who have visited the canyon recognize it as the most beautiful spot there is within easy distance from town and will agree that its preservation for the enjoyment of the public is a service of the highest possible character. In the flats adjoining the creek on the lower section of the proposed park grow quantities of shrubs, grasses and flowers not found on the arid levels above. Fir trees are found among the pines and there are stands of larch, poplar and other deciduous trees.

As an example of what the canyon would be turned into in case it were not preserved as a park there can be seen a 40 acre tract below the former Orewiler mill site. This area was cut over last summer and it now lies bare and brown to the sky, offering a vivid comparison with the adjoining timbered canyon floor. When President F.P. Hixon of The Shevlin-Hixon Company, suggested a few weeks ago the possible creation of the Shevlin Memorial Park, Messrs Baird and Orewiler were about to begin cutting in the canyon adjoining this 40 acre tract. Advised of the plan they readily consented to move to another location and the rest of the canyon was saved.

Championship contest is on

Playing for the third time this year, the Bend and Prineville high schools are meeting on the Redmond gridiron this afternoon to decide the football championship of Central Oregon. Each school, playing on its home grounds, has won, and the battle on a neutral field is expected to be decisive.

Because of the importance of the contest the high school was dismissed at noon, and virtually the entire student body, as well as many Bend business men are in attendance at the game. Prineville and Redmond stores were closed during the afternoon to allow for a big turnout. One more game, the Turkey Day event, remains for the Bend eleven to play in winding up the season. Some Portland team will be brought in, but negotiations are not yet completed.

Brickwork starts

on Catholic Church

Laying the floor and brick began this morning on the new Catholic Church on Franklin avenue and will now be rushed with all possible speed before winter sets in. A.E. Friborg has the contract for the brick and stone work under E.P. Brosterhous who has the general contract for the building.

In its essential features the structure will be the same as originally announced. In order to obviate delays and to cut the cost, which under the original plans was considered to be too high, the architecture has been simplified. However, the construction that will be carried out at the present will make possible the addition later of many of the beautiful features as originally designed. The Bend Brick & Lumber Company is making special brick for the windows arches and spires.

75 years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 23, 1944

States celebrate holiday

on different days

Thanksgiving day will be celebrated on Nov. 23 in 40 states and the District of Columbia in keeping with a federal law, passed in 1941, establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the holiday.

The eight states that will observe the holiday on Nov. 30, the last Thursday in the month, are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Nebraska, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

The last Thursday in November was observed as a day of national thanks from President Lincoln’s day until 1939 when President Roosevelt advanced it a week to lengthen the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The experiment was ended by congressional action in 1941.

Exactly when the Pilgrims observed the first Thanksgiving in gratitude for the first harvest is not a matter of record and the holiday was marked at various times until a proclamation by Lincoln stabilized it in 1864.

Scholarship won

by Redmond girl

Miss May Ellen Skidmore, of Redmond, has been awarded a piano scholarship at Eastern Oregon College at La Grande. The scholarship entitles Miss Skidmore, a freshman in teacher training, to two lessons per week for the college year. The award was made by Miss Hilda Anthony, piano instructor at the college.

2 scarlet fever cases noted

After two weeks lull scarlet fever has broken out again in the county, Dr. Wayne S. Ramsey, Deschutes county director of public health, said today. Two cases were reported last week in Redmond, bringing to 13 the total number reported since Sept. 5.

As the disease is contagious, Dr. Ramsey said today that children who appear in ill health should be kept out of school and be examined by a physician. One death from scarlet fever has occurred in the recent outbreak.

Other communicable diseases reported last week consisted of two cases of measles. All county physicians participated in the report.

Shop, mail early is plea of WMC as yuletide nears

Shop now and mail your Christmas gifts by December 1! This was the combined plea of the war manpower commission, the office of defense transportation and the postoffice department, according to Postmaster Robert H. Fox today. The postmaster said that he had received an urgent request from the three agencies to try to persuade persons to follow the buy and mail early habit.

The postoffice department pointed out that from the 1941 total of 1,566,433 bags of Christmas packages, they have jumped to an estimated 2,827,000 bags in 1944.

And the war manpower commission pointed out that stores and shopping centers are especially handicapped through lack of help, and that early shopping would not overtax them.

The office of defense transportation pointed out that all rail and truck transportation are overburdened with war requirements and that last minute mailing of Yuletide gifts would clog the nation’s transportation facilities and result in a blow to the prosecution of the war.

50 years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 23, 1969

Officials hope to receive funds for visitor’s center

Officials of the Deschutes National Forest are hopeful that funds will be appropriated next year for resumption of a project which includes construction of a visitors’ center near the base of Lava Butte south of Bend.

A five-year timetable for completion of the Lava Land Interpretive Area Project, of which the center is a part, was revealed yesterday in Washington by Rep. Al Ullman, D-Ore.

In addition to the center, Dale Gallagher, recreation officer for the Deschutes National Forest, said the project involves work on trails in the Lava butte area, construction of a Benham Falls loop drive, and work at several other points of geologic interest, including Newberry Crater, Lava Cast Forest, and Lava Caves.

Work on the project began last year with the drilling of a well at the site of the visitors’ center. The area was cleared this past summer.

Originally, funds were planned in the current fiscal year for construction of the center but were removed as a result of federal cutbacks. Gallagher said, however, the project has been given a high priority and he is hopeful the funds will be included in the 1970-71 budget. Ullman has called for completion of the center building by December, 1970, and other facilities at the center by March 1971. Total cost of the project is estimated at $1.5 million.

Rock wall along river is completed by park crew

Bend park employees this week completed construction of a rock wall along the Deschutes River in the vicinity of the city recreation office south of the Portland Avenue bridge.

The wall reaches about 350 feet from the bridge and connects with another portion of wall constructed in 1967.

Vince Genna, parks and recreation director, said the project was part of a continuing project to beautify city property. Genna was recently named beautification coordinator for the city. “Our philosophy is that you can’t ask others to beautify their property if the city doesn’t do what it can,” he said.

In addition to the rock wall, work in the recreation office area includes the planting of grass and trees. Four to six-foot vine maples will be planted next spring, Genna said.

Construction of rock walls along the river, he noted, is a program which was begun many years ago along the river side of Harmon Playfield. Work since then has included walls in Drake and Pioneer parks.

Headlines

Joseph P. Kennedy dies at Massachusetts home — Tens of thousands of marchers protest war — American lunar landing team walks on Moon surface after perfect touchdown — Pele scores 1000th goal — Draft lottery bill handed Senate okay — Vietnam War deaths top 700,000 mark

25 years ago

For the week ending

Nov. 23, 1994

Cars driving us from homes

If the car remains our master, more and more Americans won’t be able to afford a home of their own. So warns a Miami architect who will preach the gospel of small-scale “traditional neighborhoods” in a visit to Bend.

“We’ve lost our houses to the car. There’s no question about that,” Andres Duany said this week. “The middle class cannot afford housing for the first time in history, because every adult has to have his own automobile.”

Duany said he has nothing against the shiny metal chariots that emerge from Detroit or Japan. But he bemoans the effects they have had on our way of life. “I love cars, as they appear in the advertisements, flowing freely through the landscape,” Duany said before a visit that includes a free lecture/slide show at the Tower Theatre at 7:30p.m. Saturday. “I love cars as a romantic instrument of liberation,” he said. “I hate them as a prosthetic device, like a crutch or a missing foot. They have become an extension of our body. We can’t get around without them.”

Duany and his wife, fellow architect Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, have drawn attention for championing a return to America’s village and neighborhood roots, a time when the corner grocery was a handy place to wait inside for a bus, when one could walk to the store for a jug of milk. Duany’s visit, sponsored by several local private and public entities, including The Bulletin, comes at a time when Bend is struggling to plan for and cope with rapid growth, and building fees are rising in an effort to cover the costs of that growth.

Duany said development easily paid its own way during 250 years of an American growth pattern that focused on small, closely knit towns and villages. “It’s only now that development doesn’t pay for itself,” he said.

Every car cost $6,000 a year to own, based on a national average, Duany said. “That will cover a $60,000 increment of mortgage,” he said. “So whenever you see a three-car garage, you are seeing $180,000 worth of housing purchase.”

Duany’s vision is of neighborhoods in which most residents live within a five-minute walk, or quarter-mile, of its center, where transit could mix with retail stores and convenient work places. It’s one thing to create such developments on a piece of bare ground, as Duany and his associates have in several locales. It is clearly another to bring such zoning changes to an existing city, where homeowners often bristle at the idea of businesses next door that generate more traffic.

“It’s not technically difficult. It’s politically difficult,” Duany said. “The citizenry is in such fear of so many things.” And with good reason, he added.

“Everything that developers have done for the past 40 years has made life worse, so they are afraid of change, justifiably,” Duany said. “That doesn’t mean every proposal is negative. They need to become educated, to become experts, so they can tell the good and bad apart.”