On a normal day when Mirror Pond is full, the sun reflecting off the surface makes it difficult to see what is underneath.

But Cece Buchanan, who lives near the pond, knows: Old dock pilings from a community tradition lurk below the surface. They’ve become visible in recent weeks, rising above the water like teeth.

“Whenever the water’s down, it always reminds us that it’s dangerous,” Buchanan said.

Bend Park & Recreation District lowered the water level in Mirror Pond earlier this year for an $8.3 million trail project. The change in the pond’s water level revealed mud flats and the historic dock pilings that are remnants of the Bend Water Pageant, which began in 1933.

Whenever Buchanan paddles on the pond, she is wary of the pilings below.

When Buchanan, 59, first crossed the pond on her stand-up paddleboard, the fin of her board hit the pilings, she said. Buchanan was lucky enough to fall on her board and not on the pilings, she said.

“If you hit one, you’d be lucky not to hit another,” said Dave Buchanan, Cece’s husband.

A native Bend resident, Dave Buchanan learned to canoe on the pond before paddling and floating became a local mainstay.

The couple said they warn family and friends whenever they paddle or float the river to beware the pilings lurking in the pond. Even a buoy or a sign warning river users of the potential danger would be better than nothing, they said.

History

The pilings are remnants of the grand scale arches built each summer for the Bend Water Pageant and dismantled when it was over. The arches were different every year. They featured art deco stylings and fanciful designs. Often, the pageant queen and her court would sit on giant swans that floated through the arches.

The pageant was the brainchild of a group of Bend businessmen during the Great Depression to garner business and tourism, according to The Bulletin’s archives. It became a Fourth of July float show and pageant that drew in people from all over the state.

Paul Reynolds, 87, helped build those striking, colorful arches for several years before the final pageant in 1965.

“It was fun. I mean, you were proud of your community and the interest businesses took in building and sponsoring the floats. It was a real feeling of community spirit,” Reynolds said.

Eventually, interest dwindled and businesses no longer wanted to invest time and money in the pageant, he said.

Nothing today comes close to the grandeur of the Water Pageant, Reynolds said.

“It was quite amazing,” he said.

Removal?

Removing the pilings could be a chore, said Don Horton, the executive director of the Bend Park & Recreation District.

Because the pilings are more than 70 years old, the State Historic Preservation Office could determine that they are of historical significance, Horton said in an email. Additionally, any work done in the pond requires city, state and federal permits.

“If the agencies determine that we don’t need a permit we will be able to more forward in cutting or removing the piers. If we do have to apply for a permit, we may or may not be required to remove the pilings, and it could (take) months to go through the permitting process,” Horton said.

But Mirror Pond’s low waterline also brought up another discussion: dredging.

The dredge

Last summer, Mirror Pond Solutions, which was jointly owned by the late Old Mill District developer Bill Smith and Taylor Northwest construction company owner Todd Taylor, transferred ownership of the bottom of Mirror Pond to the Bend Park & Recreation District. Horton said this will allow the park district to keep its commitment to dredge the pond.

Sediment has collected at the pond bottom for decades. The last time the pond was dredged was in 1984, according to city of Bend documents, and even then, the job was only halfway completed.

In 2019, the city of Bend and the park district signed a joint resolution agreeing to dredge the pond, but progress on the project has become murky.

“Dredging has not been discussed much in the last few years,” said Tom Gauntt, a spokesperson for PacifiCorp, the owner and operator of the Mirror Pond dam.

The city, which owns the pedestrian bridge above the pond, agreed to pay up to $3 million in dredging costs and the park district agreed to pay around $300,000. PacifiCorp said at the time that it would match what the city and park department put toward the project. A 2019 estimate valued the cost of the project at $6.7 million.

Neither Bend City Manager Eric King nor Horton were willing to comment on the status of dredging the pond for this story.