Yesteryear: Let the party in the park begin

Published 12:00 am Sunday, July 16, 2023

100 Years Ago

For the week ending

July 22, 1923

Balls of ice bombard Bend from the sky

Hailstones as big as golf balls, falling thick and fast just before noon today, drove Bend residents to shelter and shattered globes on nearly every lamp post along downtown street. Several windows were cracked. The bombardment lasted less than 15 minutes, but was the most severe hailstorm ever recorded here. Stones measured by a party of surveyors from the city engineer’s office were as large as an inch and one-half in diameter, after striking the ground and breaking. Others reported stones five and one-half inches in circumference. It took only nine of the stones to weigh one-fourth of a pound. The largest reported weighed one and one half ounces.

In downtown office buildings, the din caused by hailstones striking the roofs was so great that occupants could hardly hear each other shout. The tops of automobiles were badly damaged, and even the hoods were dented.

Work on mill east of river Is well along

With practically all of the mill machinery installed, the burner to be completed this week and work on the power house well along, construction of the new Brooks-Scanlon mill is reaching a point at which announcement of the opening date will be possible within a week.

The boilers and fire boxes in the power house are in place, and also the giant steam turbine and generator. The pipe fitting to connect the boilers and the turbine is now being done. The foundation for the fuel house has been laid, and work on the walls is to begin this week.

Library plan launched here

Possibility of having built in this city a new library structure with a combined rest room was taken under consideration Tuesday afternoon when members of the civic league met at the home of Mrs. C.S. Hudson. A committee composed of Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. K.B. Weil and Mrs. J.F. Arnold was appointed to investigate the matter and to hold a conference with the Deschutes county library board. It was pointed out that other cities in Oregon have combination libraries and rest rooms and have found the plan a most feasible one.

Gym building is given back by local post

More than two years of management of the Bend Amateur Athletic club building by Percy A. Stevens post, American Legion, came to an end last night. A unanimous vote by the post authorized the executive committee to turn the building back to the Bend Holding Company, in which corporation the title rests.

Management of the building was taken over by the legion at the request of the holding company on June 20, 1921. Since that time the post has paid for extensive repairs, particularly on the roof, and has gradually pulled the building out of debt. However, the building is not meeting a community need prevails among the members of the legion, and was a deciding factor in causing the post to relinquish management.

75 Years Ago

For the week ending

July 22, 1948

Benham Falls houses moved to Shevlin town

Moving their town is practically routine for residents of Shevlin, far-famed portable village operated by The Shevlin-Hixon company, which has been located on four sites since its beginning more than 30 years ago. Last week five houses from the company’s former railroad station at Benham Falls were loaded onto flat cars and moved south into Klamath county to the company’s newest location east of Chemult. Old timers are looking over the new additions to the community and reminiscing about the early days, when the Benham Falls settlement was inhabited by several families.

The Benham Falls site was once used as a picnic ground, and employes of the company and their families gathered each year on Labor day for the annual picnic in the grassy meadow south of the falls, on the west bank of the Deschutes.

At one time, the company’s entire camp was located near the Benham Falls picnic area, and when the village was moved, five houses were left to house the section crew that maintained the company’s railroad spur from the red water tank 12 miles out of Bend to Lava Junction.

In the summer of 1939, The Shevlin-Hixon company had its last big log drive on the Deschutes river at Benham falls. The log drive drew many visitors to the settlement, and inspired nationwide publicity.

In May the company abandoned the Hixon junction spur and routed its logging train over the great Northern tracks into Bend.

World’s biggest pine tree will not be cut

A tree on the upper Deschutes river believed to be the world’s largest Ponderosa pine is not to be cut, foresters stressed today following the announcement that the tree is in a sales area. Only marked trees in the area are to be removed, and the “big pine” will not be marked.

The massive tree is on public domain, timber on which was offered for sale this week, with the Tite Knot Pine mills, Redmond, submitting a record offer of $40.06 per thousand feet for the 3,787,000 board feet of pine on the tract.

The diameter of the huge pine is 11.3 feet at the ground line and 8.6 feet at the “D.B.H.” point, 4.5 feet above ground, the diameter of the tree is 8.0 feet.

Height of the tree, forked at top, is 162 feet. The volume of the tree is estimated around 25,000 board feet.

While the Deschutes pine, in the Pringle falls region, does not compare with the ancient sequoias of California for size, it is easily a prince among pines, foresters declare. It is bigger by a foot than the biggest previously known Ponderosa pine, near Mt. Adams on the Columbia national forest. The Mt. Adams pine is 7.3 feet in diameter at the “D.B.H.” line. It is 10 feet taller than the Deschutes pine.

50 Years Ago

For the week ending July 22, 1973

Girls come out swinging, but boys produce late splurge

Mighty Casey may have dimmed the joy in Mudville after striking out, but Healy’s Furniture Little Leaguers brightened the Bend picture Wednesday- at least for the male segment of the population. The little men trounced the Bend Parks and Recreation Little Women 18 to 8 in an action-packed, error-filled softball encounter at Juniper Field.

But with all the action, nobody really cared about the errors. Players, coaches and spectators concentrated on having fun as they watched Bend’s battle of the sexes- and they did.

The boys’ ages range from 10 to 13; the girls’ from 10 to 14. That extra year the gals had on the boys is a crucial one, too. The girls were a couple of heads taller, forcing Healy’s pitcher Ron Williams to revamp his hurling strategy. The team’s catcher had to abandon his crouch and straighten out his knees to get his mitt into the strike zone.

The seven-inning game was still a hot contest by the top of the fifth inning, when the score was 9-7 for Healy’s. Then the boys broke loose.

Charles Little smacked two home runs and just about all of his teammates managed to get on base one way or another.

Fielding the ball wasn’t the girls’ forte, but slugging it was, Charlin Masterson, Heidi Larisch, Gina Blakely and Linda Shuey gave the boys’ team a few anxious moments when they cracked hits.

Kim Mahone, the girls’ mentor, smiled through defeat and said she was proud of her players. “It was a good game, They lost, but it was still a good game,” she said. Healy’s coach Chris Christopher said he and his boys enjoyed the encounter. “And we’ll give them a chance to get even next year,” Christopher said.

That gave rise to the thought that the girls may have lost the battle of the sexes, but they haven’t lost the war.

25 Years Ago

For the week ending July 22, 1998

Let the party in the park begin

That popular series of summer concerts in Drake Park — the free ones, with the volume set on “mellow,” that end at sunset — has a new season and a new sponsor: Munch & Music, as it’s been known, has been officially renamed First Security Munch & Music in honor of what organizers call “generous title sponsorship contribution.”

The new name is a bit unwieldy, but the schedule and rules are as simple as they’ve been in previous years: five consecutive Thursdays; music starts at 5:30 p.m. and finishes at 8:30 p.m.; bring your won picnic, or purchase something catered by a variety of local eateries; no drugs or alcohol; and no charge for admission.

The 1998 series opens Thursday with the Dirty Dozen Band, a horn-heavy ensemble whose signature instruments is the sousaphone- a tub-like configuration of brass and

plumbing that coils around the musician’s upper body and frames his or her face with the “bell” at the same time.

Thanks to a varied playlist, the Dirty Dozen have done a lot of touring in a lot of places (including Europe, Asia, and Latin America). The ensemble has been performing for 17 years, and their tight sound reflects this.

Expect a good crowd Thursday — audiences in past seasons have ranged from 1,000 to 4,000.

The lineup for the following weeks is Hummingfish, playing original “optimistic rock” on July 23; Satin Love Orchestra, playing disco R&B on July 30; Symphony de la Steele, playing authentic Caribbean percussion, on Aug 6; and I and I, playing African-style reggae on Aug 13.

Redmond rations its water

Residents are being ordered to halt outdoor water use until midnight Wednesday due to a well pump failure and the demands brought on by hot weather.

Residents are asked to stop watering lawns and gardens, washing cars and other vehicles, filling pools, hosing down driveways and sidewalks, and using water for recreational use.

City of Redmond officials announced the mandatory water curtailment Monday after the city’s oldest well quit pumping. A short circuit and fire in the pump took the well off line. Well No. 1 normally pumps about 1.3 million gallons of water a day, said city water division supervisor Pat Dorning. The pump is expected to be repaired Wednesday. The curtailment will allow water reservoirs to refill. In addition, the city must maintain a reserve for fighting fires.

City crews have shut down irrigation systems in all of the city’s 19 parks and at the municipal airport. The Redmond School District also is discontinuing outside use of city water, although some watering will continue using irrigation water.

Watering of lawns at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond is continuing in preparation for next week’s county fair. The fairgrounds uses irrigation district water. Water use in Redmond often nears the city’s water production capacity during the summer. The city has four wells that can pump up to 8 million gallons a day. A large, fifth well designed to pump 4/7 million gallons a day already has been drilled but won’t begin operating until October.

Redmond public works officials issued watering restrictions Friday as demand crept up to the wells’ maximum output. Those restrictions- no watering from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.- will continue to be in effect after the No. 1 well is back on line.

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