100 years ago

For the week ending

March 23, 1924

Businessmen to take down highway signs

That the movement to remove all signboard advertising adjacent to highways in Deschutes county will be backed by business men of Bend is indicated in a letter received by the Bend Commercial club, from the management of Mannheimer’s department store. The Mannheimer signboards will be removed from the highways as soon as a contract with the sign company expires.

The letter from Mannheimer’s is in answer to one sent out last week by the commercial club president, H. E. Allen, to all firms having signboards adjacent to highways in this county, asking heads of the firms to join in the movement to do away with the defacing billboards. The Mannheimer letter was the first answer received.

In the letter sent out by the commercial club Allen states, “The directors of the commercial club feel that the next step to be taken in bettering conditions on the highways for the benefit of the tourist and others is the removal of all advertising billboards and in view of the public spirited action of the lumber companies feel justified in asking the business men of Bend to do their share. … National advertisers are doing away with highway billboards. The announcement of the Stand Oil Company to this effect was made on Wednesday. Will you not advise me that you also will join in the movement?”

Steam turbine nearly ready

The new steam turbine and the first section of new boilers in The Shevlin-Hixon Company’s power plant will be in use by Saturday, March 29. The setting up of the turbine on its concrete base in the engine room is progressing rapidly, and the first section of boilers is nearing completion. The other improved water tube boilers will not be in use for about six weeks. The new smokestack, the fourth in the power plant, has been completed. It is at the rear of the boiler room, within a few feet of the company’s original refuse burner.

Downtown buildings disconnect sewers

A survey of roofs of business blocks in the downtown section conducted by City Engineer R. B. Gould, recently placed in charge of sewers, shows that many owners have already disconnected the roof drainage which formerly poured into the sewer pipes. Others have been notified, and have promised to take similar action.

Bend’s sewer system was designed for sanitary purposes only, and its use as a storm sewer also has been one of the chief causes of periodic flooding of basements, and plugging of pipes, Gould believes.

Bend girl starting on trip to Europe

A visit across the Atlantic, extending over an indefinite period, will be made by Miss Marion Lawrence, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Lawrence of this city, who starts tomorrow for New York City, intending to sail from there to London.

Miss Lawrence will spend some time in the British isles with friends, some of whom may accompany her on her trip to the continent and to northern Africa, France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Algeria will be visited, according to her present plans.

Miss Lawrence intends to spend much of her time sketching from old world life and scenes.

75 years ago

For the week ending

March 23, 1949

Hogland named on all-star five

Old timers checked Oregon high school basketball tournament records today and discovered that Doug Hogland was the second Bend player in the 30-year history of play to win a place on an all-state first team. The only other player to win that coveted honor was Ed Brosterhous, in 1921.

Hogland tied for third place in scoring honors in this year’s tourney, with 57 points. Also among the high scorers was Mickey Sullivan with 47 points.

Another Bend player, Bob Hawes, won a place on the second all-state team, duplicating honors achieved by Howard Smead of the Bears in the 1944 tourney. Incidentally, the 1944 team advanced a step nearer the state title than did the Bears of 1949. The 1944 squad reached the finals and lost to Ashland 55 to 35 in the playoff.

Hogland was captain of the Bend team that achieved the third spot in tourney play by defeating Hillsboro 50-47 and received from Dave Staley, member of the OSAA board, the third place trophy.

Bend’s Mirror Pond Pageant set for July 2-3

Bend’s 1949 Mirror Pond Pageant will again be presented on two nights this year, July 2 and 3, with the celebration to extend into July 4, it was decided at last night’s meeting of the Bend Stampede and Water Pageant association.

The pageant association decided on July 2 and 3 as the nights for the pageant this year because the dates fall on a week end. July 4 will be on a Monday.

One of the major projects facing the association this year will be that of financing. Due to a heavy investment last year in acquiring permanent assets, such as a new boom and an entirely new arch, the association ended its year more than $3,500 in the red. Value to the community of the water pageant was stressed. People of Bend will be called on to support the water pageant, through contributions and the purchase of buttons. This year it was decided, persons who back the pageant financially will be entitled to wear a swan lapel button. These are to be designed in plastic and will represent a Mirror pond swan.

If plans work out each Bend high school class will be asked to nominate a queen candidate with the four girls to represent Bend. Each of the other Central Oregon towns will be asked for one candidate, to be nominated by high school students.

Idaho ‘sneakers’ visitors in Bend

On a “sneak day” trip that brought them 283 miles to Bend, 52 members of the Parma, Idaho, high school senior class, with escorts, arrived here in two chartered buses at 8:10 a.m. following a night trip from the Idaho town.

Not in the least sleepy following their night trip over Oregon mountains and across the “high desert” to Bend, the seniors planned to see points of interest in the Deschutes country today. Trips included a visit to the Brooks-Scanlon plant, and a jaunt to the top of Pilot Butte was on the schedule. Also the students planned to visit the Petersen rock gardens.

The Seniors will start their 283-mile return trip this evening, and will be back in school for classes tomorrow.

50 years ago

For the week ending

March 23, 1974

No flower baskets in Bend in ‘74

Flower baskets that added a colorful touch to the Bend business district in past summers will be missing from utility poles this year.

Pat Bells, secretary-treasurer of the Flower Basket Committee, reported yesterday that the committee lacks financing for the project.

“We’d need between $2,500 and $3,000. We’ve got $11 in our treasury,” Mrs. Bells said.

She noted that the committee came up about $400 short last year. In addition, an old vehicle that had been used in watering the petunias and lobelia daily “just wore out.” However, even though there will be no baskets this year, Mrs. Bells and Linda Buckner, chairman of a Soroptimist committee that has assisted in the solicitation of funds, are still hopeful the program can be reinstated next year.

They said any money contributed this year will be carried over in the Flower Basket Committee’s treasury. In the past, the hanging baskets were in place from the end of June through August.

Great films to be shown in re-modeled theater

Bend’s newest theater, the Fine Arts, which opened this week, is also the city’s second oldest, the Liberty.

The Liberty closed in 1954, when cable television came to Bend, according to Central Oregon movie theater owner James Hutchens.

When he decided to reopen the upstairs section of the Liberty as the Fine Arts Theater, “we had to break through a wall.” The stairs had been removed when the main part of the movie house was transformed into offices.

In addition to 20 years’ accumulation of dust, Hutchens said, the old lighting fixtures, the ornate windows, the panels and the projection booth were there.

The Fine Arts Theater is the old balcony section of the Liberty, with the old upstairs lobby serving as the entrance from downstairs at 849-1/2 Wall Street, two doors north of the Tower Theater, and next to the Encore, which Hutchens also operates.

The Liberty was open by 1914, the date a photograph was taken by J.C. Rhodes, the negative of which has been preserved by Central Oregon historian Phil Brogan. The Liberty seated some 600 patrons. Its balcony, now the Fine Arts, will hold 116 viewers. While Hutchens couldn’t pin down the year the Liberty was built, he said the theater was remodeled at least twice — “we found three different layers of surfacing on the ceiling and walls.”

“We’re gong to show movies that fit the title of the theater. We’re going to show artistic movies, the classics. We’re going to span the gap between Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino and today’s movies — from the great old silent stars to the big stars today. The movies we have here will all be in the artistic vein,” Hutchens said.

One aspect of the great old days of movies, however, won’t return.

When the old carpet was taken up, beneath it was found a Hershey bar wrapper. The price on it was five-cents.

25 years ago

For the week ending

March 23, 1999

Dry Canyon Trail wins funding

Redmond has won federal transportation funds for an extension for the Dry Canyon Trail. A nine-member advisory panel to the Oregon Department of Transportation picked five of 20 trail and sidewalk proposals to win funding in ODOT Region 4, which extends through the center of the state from the Columbia River to the California border.

The money will come from the federal Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, known as “TEA-2,” if the list wins Oregon Transportation Commission approval in August. The committee had only $2 million to spend, but got $9 million in requests.

Redmond will receive almost $267,000 to extend its multipurpose path in the northern Dry Canyon for another mile to the south. It would extend south from Elm Avenue to Black Butte/Antler, where a cyclist/pedestrian traffic signal will allow path users to cross the street more safely.

The project, the second phase of a path through the 3.5-mile canyon, ends at Highland Avenue. The first phase was a paved, 10-foot-wide, 1.9-mile-long path from the wastewater treatment plant at the north end of the canyon to Elm Avenue. It was completed in 1997, also with federal grant money.

Mary Meloy, Redmond’s director of public works, said she thought the request had a good chance for two reasons: It extends a previously funded project, and Redmond is kicking in $70,000 in development fees, more than twice the required local government matching amount of 10 percent.

First woman speaker honored

SALEM — As the speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in 1995, Bev Clarno was accustomed to being the center of attention at the statehouse.

On Monday, the Central Oregon Republican who isn’t in office now but is seeking a seat in the state Senate — got some recognition on the sidelines.

She was honored by lawmakers as part of Women’s History Month. “The history of Oregon would not be complete without acknowledging Bev Clarno, the first Republican woman to serve as Speaker,” said Rep. Betsy Close, R-Albany.

Clarno received the 1998 Woman of Achievement Award from the Oregon Commission for Women.

“It’s nice to be back,” Clarno said. “It’s a very nice honor.”

But Monday wasn’t her first foray to the Legislature this year. She’s been visiting the Capital at least once a month to bone up on current issues to prepare for her bid to replace Sen. Neil Bryant, R-Bend, who can’t run again because of term limits.

And she wasn’t shy about telling anybody who would stop to talk that she’s back in the hunt for elected office.

Clarno also touched base with other Central Oregon Republicans she helped elect with money from a political action committee she formed, called Central Oregon Victory PAC.

But Monday wasn’t quite perfect. “Term limits,” Clarno said shaking her head. “There’s a lot of new faces.”

And that meant several new lawmakers didn’t know how to pronounce her name: Close, for one, introduced Clarno to the House and then read a two-page biography but didn’t get it right.

“It’s not Clare-no, it’s Clar-no,” Clarno said afterwards.