100 years ago

For the week ending

April 27, 1924

Class picnic is cut to one-day affair

The 1924 senior class at the Bend high school is departing from the custom of several years of holding a three day outing during commencement week. This year the class picnic will be a one day affair and will be held Thursday, May 1. Plans for the picnic are now being laid. The place where it is to be held is not being announced, but it is known that the seniors are planning to take fishing tackle, a Victrola and an ice cream freezer along.

Salaried mayor, tenure of office before council

Five amendments to the charter of Bend, one of which calls for a minimum salary of $1,800 a year for the mayor, and another of which increases tenure of office of elective municipal officials to four years, may be submitted to the voters of Bend before the state primaries on May 16.

The mayor salary amendment, as interpreted by council members, would virtually put the city under a managerial form of government. It is likely that before the question is put on the ballot that a maximum salary clause will be inserted, and that a provision now included in the amendment that the mayor shall devote his entire time to the service of the city, may be stricken out.

The amendment to increase tenure of office is designated primarily to insure holdover members on each council, three to be named at each biennial election. Mayor and treasurer would be elected once in four years.

Day a week layoff plan

Sawmill employees and others connected with the production departments of the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Co. plant will go fishing Saturday of this week instead of going to work. At least, they may not all go fishing, but they will not go to work this Saturday, nor any Saturday for some weeks to come.

At a meeting of plant employees with Four L conference committee members this noon it was decided to adopt a five days a week program in the mills as a method of curtailing production to avoid a more serious curtailment later.

This program does not set a precedent for a five or five and one-half day week in normal times, it was explained by H.E. Allen, assistant general manager, as that plan, with overtime work to make up the difference, has been opposed by the company.

3 trappers killed

An assassin’s bullets ended the lives of Ed Nichols, Dewey Morris and Roy Wilson, Lava lake trappers.

Definite report of the murder, suspected for the past two weeks, was given this evening to Sheriff S. E. Roberts by long distance telephone from La Pine.

The bodies of the three men were found in Big Lava lake. Each had been shot through the head. The gruesome find was made near the large hole in the ice found by searchers several days ago, which was in a line with tracks made by the sled on which the bodies of the victims are supposed to have been hauled from the trappers’ cabin at Little Lava lake to the edge of the ice. Nichols, the oldest of the three, still had his glasses on.

The men are believed to have been killed on or shortly after January 15, of this year. Robbery is thought to be the motive, although rumors of revenge may enter the case.

75 years ago

For the week ending

April 27, 1949

Daylight saving planned here if system general

Bend will have daylight saving time this year, if such a plan is adopted more or less generally in Oregon and California.

The city commission made this decision at its meeting last night, despite a protest by Commissioner Ralph Bailey that it might inconvenience tourists.

“Portland’s going to do it,” Mayor T.D. Sexton pointed out. “Culver didn’t change last year,” Bailey countered.

“I like the idea, because it gives me more time to go fishing,” Commissioner Bert White interposed. “I move that we adopt daylight saving, if it becomes general this year in the Pacific northwest,” Commissioner W.B. Anderson said. Commissioner Baer seconded. The motion carried by a vote of 6-1, Bailey dissenting.

Aitken plaque dedication set for Sunday

A bronze plaque prepared by Central Oregon sportsmen as a memorial to the late George E. Aitken of Sisters, was in place on the Wizard falls trout hatchery building today, with formal unveiling set for sunday. Aitken will be honored for his pioneer interest in trout propagation. The plaque bears this inscription:

“George E. Aitken, 1872-1944. This plaque dedicated by Central Oregon sportsmen April 24, 1949, to an ardent sportsman of Sisters, instrumental in the establishment of this hatchery.” Formal unveiling of the plaque Sunday will be by Mrs. Aitken.

Ralph W. Crawford, Bend, supervisor of the Deschutes national forest, heads the general committee in charge of the dedication.

In connection with the program, the new hatchery, in a parklike setting at Wizard falls, just below Camp Sherman, will sponsor an “open house” Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of thousands of fish, some of them of legal size, will be in the holding ponds. It was announced that the total number of trout now in the hatchery exceeds 1,000,000.

50 years ago

For the week ending

April 27, 1974

Old hatchery gets a new life

This week’s gray Central Oregon skies are visible through openings in the high ceiling of the old Shevlin Park fish hatchery building, which is undergoing a facelift. The Bend parks and Recreation Department is renovating the old structure, transforming it into a meeting hall, overnight facility for youth groups and a center for day camp activities. Vince Genna, director of the parks and recreation department, said he hopes the facility will be ready for use this summer. he said members of the Central Oregon Builders Association are donating labor and materials for the structure’s renovation.

25 years ago

For the week ending

April 27, 1999

Time capsule touts railroad arrival

Alas, there was only a token of tine, not a spike of gold, in an 88-year-old time capsule found in Bend’s historic rail depot.

Still, there were several historic artifacts to show an excited crowd outside the Deschutes Historical Center this morning as about 50 people crowded around to witness the opening of a small black metal box, set in the cornerstone of the depot in 1911.

The discovery failed to end the mystery of what happened to the “golden spike” railroad magnate James J. Hill drove to symbolically complete the railroad link to bend in October 1911.

Instead, the only non-paper item in the box was a small gray metal token, good for 5 cents worth of entertainment at the Carmody Brothers pool hall.

“BIG RAILROAD Celebration,” read the large red type atop a poster commemorating the Oct. 5-6, 1911 event — “Two days of excitement without a dull moment.” Two issues of the then-Bend Bulletin on preparations for the celebration were tucked inside, as was a brochure by the Bend Commerce Club, the forerunner of today’s Chamber of Commerce, touting the glories of the growing community of about 2,000. “I don’t see any golden spike, durnit,” said Barry Slaughter, a former county commissioner and historical society chairman.

He read from a typewritten paper in the box listing the city fathers instrumental in bringing the railroad to Bend and marking its arrival.

As for the spike,” The mystery lives on ,” said Old Mill District spokesman H. Bruce Miller.

Phil Brogan’s book “East of the Cascades” said Hill, last seen with the spike, may have given it to William Hanley of Burns, a colorful figure known as “the sage of the Harney rangelands,”

Hill’s address from that day was read to the crowd by Bend lawyer Martin Hansen, an avid railroad history buff.

“You have a nice place to start for a town here,” Hill said. “There is no reason why you should not produce tremendous wealth.”

Joe Oatman, a blasting contractor who worked on the Brooks-Scanlon logging railroad like his father before him, hoped the spike was inside, but wasn’t disappointed about the contents: “If I’d have been there, that’s what I would have put in it.”

The depot is being dismantled and moved to anew site in the mixed-use riverfront development. The Oregon Department of Transportation is paying up to $300,000 to move the depot out of the path of the Bend Parkway project.

Miller said the artifacts found in the time capsule will be displayed in the newly restored depot, to be used by the Central Oregon Arts Association.

Ideas abound for a new time capsule and what might go inside, but no decisions have been made.