Yesteryear: ‘Tree Eater’ gobbles up forest debris

Published 12:00 am Sunday, June 5, 2022

100 Years Ago

For the week ending

June 11, 1922

La Pine loses school

Fire, considered to have been almost certainly started by an incendiary, destroyed the $25,000 school building here early this morning, while practically the entire population of La Pine helpless to stay the progress of the flames, watched the configuration. The building carried only $12,000 insurance, but already plans for rebuilding are being talked about. This, it is considered, would involve a bond issue, as the school patrons of the district are desirous of a better and larger school of more fire-proof construction.

Footprints of a man leading to and from the building constitute the chief indication at present that the fire was set. Rain fell shortly after 9:30 o’clock last night, obliterating all marks in the soil, but a new pair of tracks was made some time after that hour and before the fire started. The building had been empty since the close of school last week.

The building destroyed was six years old, a two-story structure with four rooms on the upper floor, and furnace room, basketball court and domestic science and manual training rooms on the first floor, a semi-basement.

The loss is La Pine’s second from fire in less than a year, the last being the burning of the hotel in November.

Redmond students’ booklet is issued

The “1922 Juniper,” published by the students of Redmond Union high school, was issued today. It is a booklet of 90 pages, descriptive of the school life of the two years since the last “Juniper” was issued, and is dedicated to the new high school building. Members of the staff of editors were Ernest Hauser, Marjorie Wells, Bartlett Kendall, Cecil Holloway, Paul Marsh, Frances McCormack, Leland Numbers, Fay Miller, Ronald Johnson, Ione Wimp, Gertrude Jarrard and Katie Ruhr.

Attractive illustrations, including creditable cartoons drawn by students, are plentiful, and the literary style of the department’s is of a high standard.

Irrigation ditches used for swimming

Taking action on reports coming in from the Tumalo section to the effect that small boys have been using the irrigation ditches as swimming holes. District Attorney A.J. Moore has written the parents of the youthful offenders, calling to their attention the fact that the irrigation water is also extensively used for domestic purposes, and warning against its pollution.

Cats invited to Pringle warehouse

Bend’s friendless cats were given an opportunity today to acquire a home with liberal rations provided, when A.M. Pringle announced that he would accept all unattached felines. Not only will he accept them, but he actually wants them. Cats of all description, tomcats, lady cats, kittens in arms, Angora cats — all will be welcome. Pringle draws the line at polecats, however. Mice increasing by geometrical progression, are seriously menacing the peace and dignity of Pringle’s warehouse, and today, he declared war. Hence the call for cats.

75 Years Ago

For the week ending

June 11, 1947

Nursery Pipeline Bids Are Called

The forest service has called for bids to be opened June 10 for the 5,700 foot pipeline at the Bend pine nursery on the Butler road east of Bend.

The 12-inch pipeline will carry water from the Swalley ditch, under which the land has a water right, to the nursery. The pipe plots are to be watered with an overhead sprinkling system. R.P. Syverson, of Bend, has been awarded contracts for the construction of an intake weir, a crossing for the pipeline over the C.O.I canal, an outlet filter, and a pumphouse. Allen Grant, of Bend, has a contract to furnish 2,800 seven-foot lodgepole pine posts which will carry the overhead sprinkling system.

At present there is a crew of nine men working at the site. The men are ripping and removing rock from the beds which will be used to grow pine seedlings. Test seed beds were planted this spring and tiny pines are now several inches high. These beds will be used for experiments in watering, cultivation and fertilization in preparation for major plantings to be made next year.

New Oregon Film Shown In Bend

A capacity crowd filled the Allen school auditorium last night to see the Central Oregon premier showing of “This is Oregon,” a new travel film produced by the Standard Oil Company of California.

The color and sound film, lasting 30 minutes, covered all of Oregon and finally the midstate section.

The midstate tour moved from Klamath Falls to Crater lake, then on up to Diamond lake and into Central Oregon. In Bend Mirror pond with its waterfowl was pictured, with a scene along Wall street. Another view showed the city from the top of Pilot butte with the snow capped Cascades as a backdrop. The McKenzie pass lava beds and a number of the Cascade lakes were also pictured along with pine-line stretches of Central Oregon highways.

Eighteen prints are to be made of the picture for circulation over the entire United States as a part of the Standard Oil company’s travel promotion program.

Oregon Federation of Labor Opens ‘47 Convention In Bend

The Oregon Federation of Labor, with more than 400 delegates present, opened its annual convention at the Tower theater this morning with an address by President J.D. McDonald, of Portland.

Opening of the federation convention followed meetings over the weekend by the state building and construction trades, the state culinary alliance and the state council of retail clerks.

McDonald warmed delegates to consider carefully before signing any annual wage agreements with their employers and to look critically at contracts containing “no-strike, no lock-out, or no-picketing” clause.

The state president said that since the last election, labor has been faced with a loud clamor for anti-labor laws. These efforts, he said, did to spring up over night, but were the work of “certain employer groups to break the unions, or at least to cripple them.”

He called for increased patronage of goods and services bearing the union label and for an intensification of the organizational efforts of the A.F. of L unions in the state.

50 Years Ago

For the week ending

June 11, 1972

‘Tree Eater’ gobbles up forest debris

Small trees and logging slash in the Fort Rock district of the Deschutes National Forest are being devoured by a Tree Eater, a machine that chews slash into splinters. Borrowed from a national forest in California, the machine is mounted on a small crawler tractor. A 300-horsepower diesel engine drives giant teeth that make a four-inch log into toothpick size splinters in an instant. Rows of teeth, mounted on the front of the tractor, rotate like the blades of a reel-type lawnmower. Wood splinter, pine needles and a lot of dust are belched about 30 yards in front of the machine as it crawls over piles of slash. Julian Wojtowych, supervisory forester, says the biggest advantage of the Tree Eater is that it reduces the fire hazard in slash disposal. He figures that mechanical disposal costs about the same as piling and burning, but he notes that this method damages the soil less. It costs the Forest Service $40 per acre to operate the machine. Employes who use it say they can cover five acres per day if the machine doesn’t break down, but breakdowns have been a problem recently. Wojtowych says parts for the Tree Eater are difficult to obtain and he fears that the company that built it has gone out of business.

Two U.S. Forest Service employes, Mel Rex and Gordon Iverson, Bend are using the machine on a 24-acre logging site near Wig Top, 56 miles southeast of Bend. Iverson, the safety man, walks alongside the Tree Eater as Rex operates it.

He points out rocks and other potential dangers that the operator cannot see. After all of the slash has been mulched, the Forest Service employes will plow narrow strips across the site to prepare it for tree planting next spring.

“This can be done in the summer,” Wojtowych says, “but burning can’t. This does a cleaner job. From this we have 100 per cent utilization of the ground.”

Brooks-Scanlon bark debris plan receives EQC approval

In line with the Brooks-Scanlon proposal to control log debris in the Deschutes River, the Environmental Quality Commission voted unanimously last night to issue the lumber company a waste discharge permit.

Brooks-Scanlon President Michael Hollern told the commission that the company will (1) abandon use of its upper log dump by June 23, (2) eliminate log overhang from its dry log storage areas (bark had been escaping into the river from logs on land which hang over the river) and (3) remove its log handling operations from the river by Oct 1, 1974, or develop an acceptable alternative.

In commenting on the “acceptable alternative,” DEQ Director L.B. Day said “we know of no alternative at this time that would be acceptable. What it means is that Brooks-Scanlon will be out of the river by October, 1974.”

Before Hollern presented his company’s proposal, DEQ District Engineer Kent Ashbaker gave the commission a report on the log debris situation at Brooks-Scanlon. He showed slides depicting amounts of bark found in the river above and below the mill, backing up the DEQ contention that “present bark and debris control processes do not provide control equivalent tot he dry handling of all logs.”

Brooks-Scanlon’s production manager Leo Hopper reported that the company will comply with the recommendations and should be within the acceptable level following the company’s summer closedown. During the shutdown, modifications will be made.

25 Years Ago

For the week ending

June 11, 1997

Hoofin’ it to work — in style

It was a “spur of the moment” idea. Sue Stoneman didn’t have a bike and it was too far for her to walk to work.

So, Stoneman saddled up her 15-year-old horse, Katy, and pranced eight miles down Highway 20 to her job at the Deschutes County Administration Building on Wednesday. Sunday wraps up Central Oregon’s seventh annual Commute Options Week. Forty-five businesses participated in this year’s event, up from 36 businesses last year, said program coordinator Jeff Monson.

The Commute Options award ceremony will be at 4:30 p.m. today at the Riverfront Plaza. Stoneman will receive an award for the most unusual commute. Last year’s winners were a unicycle rider and a kayaker.

Stoneman arrived after her 90-minute ride carrying a cafe au lait in her right hand and wearing her pink riding overcoat.

“We stopped at the espresso stop on the way. I got the coffee and Katy got an apple bran muffin,” Stoneman said. “They didn’t have a horse window.”

Stoneman decided on Tuesday it would be fun to ride her horse to her public information job. But horse parking was a new problem for the office building.

Katy ended up across the street where she was tied to a tree. Stoneman stashed a net of hay and a water bucket behind some rocks the night before the ride.

“When I caught her this morning, she was pretty jumpy. I thought this might have been a really bad idea,” Stoneman said as Katy munched on hay. “But after two or three miles she began to settle down.”

People who passed took a second look at the off-white horse hitched next to a picnic table. Stoneman was able to check on Katy through an office window until she rode her home that afternoon. But Katy wasn’t even fazed by the unusual trip.

“She has been everywhere,” Stoneman said. The horse was an extra in Kevin Costner’s movie, “The Postman,” scheduled to be released this winter.

Commute Options week lets workers have fun while tackling a growing problem, Monson said.

The unofficial winner of the largest car pool went to the High Desert Museum, with 13 people in one car.

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