Lifeguard helicopter crash claims three

The crash of a Lifeguard medical transport helicopter in December of 1986 near the Pendleton airport after the chopper was placed in a holding pattern for 20 minutes took the lives of three local crew members.

The nearly new Bell 206 L-3 helicopter was purchased by Lifeguard Medical Transport in June of 1986 at a cost of $500,000. The aircraft had more horsepower, and several other features adding convenience for crew and patients, than the rented helicopter it replaced. Its crew, including pilot Freddie Marshal Davis, 37, of Pendleton, James Borgman, 50, registered nurse, of Walla Walla, and Nancy Neerenberg, 37, paramedic, of Hermiston, were returning from a flight to Portland and had been waiting for clearance to land at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton for 20 minutes the afternoon of December 3, 1986, when Davis contacted the FAA's Seattle Center, which handled air dispatch for the area, saying he was encountering adverse weather conditions and needed to land. When the tower responded for more information to determine the helicopter's exact position, they lost contact with the craft.

At the time, the Pendleton airport did not have an operational air traffic control tower; it was shut down during the summer due to liability insurance issues. The FAA's spokesman said that having an operational tower in Pendleton would not have averted the crash, however.

Air traffic controllers said their last contact with the helicopter, reportedly a mayday call, was received at 5:32 p.m. A short time later, a Umatilla resident monitoring a CB radio reportedly overheard a statement about a helicopter running out of fuel. Several planes were called to make an aerial search, but the low cloud ceiling prevented the pilots from getting into the air. Farmers in the Despain Gulch area began their own unofficial searches along the farm roads in the area around 8 p.m.

It was hours later when search parties headed up by the Umatilla County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police were dropped along Interstate 84 west of Pendleton to begin searching on foot for the wreckage of the aircraft. Among the party stationed furthest west from the airport, some five miles away, were East Oregonian reporters Wil Phinney and Chuck Westlund, who climbed a barbed wire fence near milepost 201 and started trudging through wispy fog along the muddy furrows of a newly seeded wheat field in search of anything that could lead them to the crash site. "Wouldn't it be weird if we did find it?" Phinney asked as he shone his weak flashlight beam along the ground.

Not five minutes into their search, at 12:25 a.m. on Dec. 4, Westlund saw the first piece of twisted metal. "I glanced at it, hoping it was a stick," Westlund wrote in his story. Seconds later, a second piece of wreckage containing part of the craft's electronic circuitry came into view, and Westlund knew they had found the crash site. Yelling to the rest of their group, and signaling to the next closest search party, Westlund and Phinney ran for the top of a short rise, following the line of debris, and saw more in the darkness below them. 

The searchers sprinted down the slope, searching desperately for survivors. But there was nothing anyone could do for the crew.

Wreckage at the scene indicated the helicopter was moving southwest when it hit the rise in the field with its landing skids, leaving them partially buried, and tearing the cabin away as it rolled down the hill. Debris was scattered in a circle about 100 yards across, with papers, maps, an oxygen bottle, blankets, medical narcotics, and even a package of "Wheel of Fortune" play money scattered along the hill in the wake of the crash. The bodies of the three crew members were found in and around the wreckage.

A scenario was later suggested by Lifeguard administrator Craig Manley that Davis had probably landed the helicopter for about 25 minutes while waiting for planes to land at the Pendleton airport. When he lifted off about 5:25 p.m., he rose into very low clouds. The accident appeared to have happened when he turned away from the airport searching for a clear area. Manley said his scenario was based on his own experience, his knowledge of the crew and Lifeguard's flying standards.

A public memorial service for Davis, Neerenberg and Borgman was held Dec. 6 at Blue Mountain Community College's Pioneer Theater.

Lifeguard's board of directors unanimously decided to keep the program flying, and an identical helicopter with some additional safety features was to be obtained from the manufacturer in Louisiana. Until the local program could be brought back on line, emergency calls were routed to other medical transport services in La Grande, Bend, Portland and Spokane.

Lifeguard Medical Transport went out of service in June of 1987 after voters rejected a $198,500 one-year operating levy for the service.

Emu walkabout causes dust-up in Pendleton

A flightless bird related to ostriches and rheas ruffled feathers in Pendleton after one of the birds escaped a pen twice in one day in August 1997, prompting calls from neighbors and a legal scuffle for the owner.

Pendleton police logged nine calls on Aug. 2, 1997, from neighbors of Budd Wolchik on Pendleton’s South Hill, after one of his flock of 20 emus flew the coop and wandered about the neighborhood. Dan Beaver and his wife, residents of Southwest Nye Avenue, could look from their backyard over Interstate 84 and see the emus bouncing around in their pens at the top of Southwest Seventh Street. And sometimes, Beaver said, they bounced off them too — nothing unusual about that. But that day, one of the emus hit the five-foot-high fence and bounced out of the pen, then proceeded to explore its surroundings as far as Southwest Isaac and 13th Street.

Wolchik chased down the errant bird and herded it back into its pen by 9:30 a.m. — not an easy task, as emus weigh 100 to 120 pounds, stand 6 to 10 feet tall and can run 40 mph. Since he’d worked a 16-hour shift the night before, Wolchik then went back to bed. Just three hours later, he was pulled from his slumber a second time for the same bird, who had again managed to escape. Sightings were called in from the 800 block of Southwest Eighth Street to the 1000 block of Southwest Hailey Avenue, and almost every street in between. Wolchik said it took less time to retrieve his bird the second time, as it was “probably hot and tired by that time,” and the emu was returned home again by 1 p.m.

But neighbors had had enough of the emu antics. In March of that year, a neighbor had filed a complaint with the Pendleton Police Department, citing problems with feathers and flies, and also called into question the zoning of Wolchik’s emu pens. Only one of Pendleton’s residential zones allowed raising livestock, bees, fowl and rabbits for non-commercial use, and Wolchik’s property was not in that zone. A “non-conforming use” exemption on the books only applied if other animals had been raised on the property within the prior year. And while horses had been raised on the property before Wolchik bought it in January of 1997, the question of whether emus could be exchanged with horses within the exemption was a sticking point.

The matter was scheduled to go before a judge, but the case was shipped to the Pendleton Planning Commission instead for an April 21 hearing. The commission heard arguments from Wolchik and his supporters, who said that emus are livestock and as such should be allowed the exemption. Two of Wolchik’s neighbors also weighed in, claiming they did not want the emus living in the neighborhood.

“We’re still getting his emus’ feathers in the swimming pool,” said neighbor Donna Schweigart.

The commission eventually voted 4-0 to oust the emus from the city limits. Wolchik explained that originally he had established his emu flock as an investment in 1993, but the market had gone south and he had changed his emphasis to raising brood stock, hoping to sell the offspring. “This is no real money-making proposition,” Wolchik said during the meeting.

Wolchik said he wouldn’t challenge the commission’s decision to the city council, and planned a “big barbecue” for the following weekend.

Hitchhiker catches ride straight to jail

A deputy sheriff for Umatilla County gave a courtesy ride to a stranger in November 1928 — straight to the Umatilla County Jail.

Deputy Sheriff Herman DeHart was returning to Pendleton from Freewater on Nov. 10, 1928, and stopped at an eating house between Milton and Freewater for lunch. He stepped inside and asked the proprietress if the lunch was ready. When she said it was not, DeHart told her he would drive on to Pendleton and eat there.

As DeHart was leaving the establishment, a well-dressed man who was sitting in the eating room spoke up and said, "Never mind fixing anything for me, I'll go to Pendleton with this man too." Surprised at the man's audacity of inviting himself along for the ride, DeHart nonetheless decided to give him a lift.

"I have to make one stop," DeHart said, "and then I'll go on to Pendleton." This was agreeable to his passenger, so the deputy stopped to see Charles Elliott, deputy sheriff for the Milton-Freewater district. In the course of their conversation, Elliott told DeHart that a garage had been burglarized the previous night, and gave his fellow deputy a description of the possible perpetrator.

After studying the description for a moment, DeHart said, "Why, I have that man in my car." 

Elliott and DeHart went to the car and questioned the man, J.C. Kitchener, who finally admitted to the burglary. He even took the deputies to the garage to show them how he entered the building.

Deputy DeHart and his passenger finally arrived in Pendleton later that evening, and Kitchener was taken straight to the Umatilla County Jail. It was discovered that the bold hitchhiker was wanted in Yakima for forgery, and for other crimes in Spokane.

Wayward card becomes holiday mystery

On Dec. 28, 1939,  a card was delivered to Pendleton resident Lorin Hecker by Andy Dalrymple, a railroad conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. Dalrymple said he found the card on the Portland Rose, an upscale passenger train established by the UP in September of 1930 that made the run from Chicago to Portland. He said the card had not been found in a mail bag.

But here’s the mystery: Hecker’s grandmother, Mrs. M.E. Calbreath of The Dalles, mailed the Washington’s birthday card to him on Feb. 19, 1914, when Hecker was just a young man. It mysteriously vanished en route to his home in Biggs, just 21 miles from his grandmother’s house. The front of the card was fairly well worn, and no other postmarks were on the envelope to show where the card had been during its 28-year hiatus.

Hecker treasured the card, because his grandmother had passed away some years after mailing it to him. He planned to investigate the card’s strange journey, if possible, in order to submit a story to “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.”

Derelict hotel reborn as mountain summer camp

In its heyday, the Meacham Hotel, built in 1897, was a welcome sight for weary travelers making their way through Eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains. In the early 1900s, freight and passenger trains stopped in the tiny hamlet along the Union Pacific Railroad line to take on water and fuel after the long haul up from the Umatilla plain in the west and the Grande Ronde Valley to the east. The white frame hotel served family-style meals in its large dining room, and a dozen rooms were available on the second floor.

Once dining cars were introduced to UP trains, the hotel saw much less use. Then Highway 30 was built, and eastward and westward construction met in Meacham. In 1923 President Warren G. Harding set up headquarters at the hotel for the dedication of a new, faster way of traveling across Oregon. But fast diesel trains and improved highway construction in the next few decades meant the Meacham Hotel was no longer needed, and the building gradually faded into obscurity. It was closed to business in 1941, and over the years suffered from looting, vandalism and neglect.

In 1962, the hotel’s owner, Mrs. Earl Gillanders, met an evangelist and his wife during a musical tour of the Northwest. Mrs. Gillanders wanted to reopen the hotel and dedicate its new life to the memory of her husband. The Rev. Herschel Thornburg and his wife sold her on the idea of a summer music and art camp for all ages, using the hotel as a base. And the Melody Mountain Hotel was born.

The former Meacham Hotel was rechristened the Melody Mountain Hotel in September 1966 by the Rev. Herschel Thornburg and his family, who ran the property as a summer music and art camp and retreat. (EO file photo)

The Thornburgs took a long-term lease with Mrs. Gillanders for the hotel and 40 acres of the surrounding property. Then they went to work repairing and refurbishing the hotel, relying on the kindness of strangers and thrift stores for much of the interior decor. “Every light fixture has been donated by a different group,” Rev. Thornburg said. “We get furniture and fixtures from all over the Northwest, and what isn’t given to us, we have bought in second-hand stores or the Goodwill stores.”

The Rev. Herschel Thornburg (EO file photo)

The summer camp opened in July of 1966 with a series of week-long music and art classes. Patrons were grouped by age, with junior high boys and girls registered at the first of the season and high school and adult groups following on later in the summer. And while the Thornburgs were not running the camp as an evangelistic endeavor, they did offer devotions twice a day.

The Thornburgs envisioned further renovations, of the cottages and barn on the property, for additional sleeping quarters, hoping that eventually up to 75 guests could be lodged at one time. And though Rev. Thornburg was willing to tackle most any remodeling project, he sometimes made several tries at it before he was successful.
“I had a pretty fizzy bath last night,” said Mark Herman, 12, son of the camp cook. “He hooked up the soda fountain here in the lobby to the plumbing. And when I turned on the bathtub faucet upstairs, carbonated water came out.”

The hotel, which has been renamed the Historic Meacham Hotel, continued to welcome groups for retreats and served as a bed and breakfast under the guidance of the Rev. Thornburg’s son, Lon, and his family as recently as 2016. It was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Aug. 6, 2002.

Pendleton native strikes gold in Alaska

A former Pendleton man who relocated to Alaska during its gold rush years struck it lucky in 1900 when partners in a company he was backing discovered gold in a creek basin at the foot of glaciers eight miles from Juneau.

Wesley N. Matlock, son of Pendleton politician William F. Matlock, joined thousands of men who moved to the Alaskan wilderness in search of gold in the late 1800s. On July 2, 1900, Matlock’s partners Sam Butts and Jesse Crawford arrived at Nugget Creek north of Juneau and began panning for gold in the middle of three basins of the creek situated at the base of glaciers. Fifteen pans were taken from the creek and all showed good color, netting the pair 50 cents (about $15 in 2018) worth of gold flakes. They returned to Juneau without marking the locations of their find to report to Matlock.

Not satisfied with the take from the creek, Matlock returned himself on July 7 to the secret location, rowing up the creek to a sand bar and from there borrowing a team of horses to arrive at the foot of the glacier. There they met another prospecting team who claimed the area was a bust for gold purposes, saying they had sunk several test holes and found nothing when they hit bedrock under the soil surface.

Matlock and his partners arrived at the creek shortly thereafter and found that this assertion was indeed the case. However, they discovered that the other team had hit a false bedrock, and by digging 2 1/2 feet deeper found a coarse gold nugget worth $5 ($150 in 2018). Five locations were investigated, including the Lucky Salmon claim that was staked as their discovery claim, and gold was found in plenty at each site. The partnership discovered that the creek was fed by two glaciers running through the creek claim basins and under the big glacier near the sand bar.

The Matlock & Company discovery claim covered about 15 acres on the middle basin. Another 100 acres on the upper basin and 350 acres on the lower basin and numerous bench claims on the rolling hills around Nugget Creek meant there was plenty of room for prospectors to stake additional claims in the area.

Matlock and his partners returned to Juneau and formed their company, filing claim to 160 acres of the lower basin. Of the 19 total claims they filed in the new district, Matlock himself held half of them.

Once the claims were filed, Matlock divulged the location of the gold strike to the Juneau Daily Dispatch, and several boatloads of prospectors immediately made their way to the glacier fields of Mt. Juneau to stake claims of their own.

Matlock and his partners went on to find more gold in Alaska, with 20 claims near Nome by 1903. By 1905 the main claims near Nome were playing out, and Matlock ceased working them while entertaining offers from people wanting to take them over. He eventually relocated to Portland, though he traveled extensively to keep tabs on his many financial interests throughout the western U.S.

WWI armistice announced before Germany's surrender

A telegram received by the East Oregonian in November of 1918 announced the armistice that ended hostilities during World War I. But the United Press had jumped the gun by four days.

The telegram was sent at 9:30 a.m. from the UP’s Portland bureau on November 7, 1918. The news from Paris, according to the telegram, was that the Allies and Germany has signed an armistice at 11 a.m. that morning (Paris time) and hostilities had ceased at two o’clock in the afternoon — but not before the Americans took control of Sedan in northeastern France.

The actual telegram received by the East Oregonian on Nov. 7, 1918, announcing the armistice (EO archive)

The EO plastered “Huns Quit!” across the top of the front page of its November 7 edition. Neither the Associated Press nor William Randolph Hearst’s International News had heard anything about the signing an hour after the UP flashed its news to the world, and the AP accused the UP of faking the news.

The following day, Admiral Henry B. Wilson, United States Navy commander of American forces in French waters, came to UP’s defense: “The statement of the United Press relative to the signing of the armistice was made public from my office on the basis of what appeared to be official and authoritative information. I am in position to know that the United Press and its representatives acted in perfect good faith and that the premature announcement was the result of an error for which the agency was in no way responsible.” A second telegram stating that the armistice information was unconfirmed had been delayed for hours by censors, arriving in New York at noon on November 8.

Facts were, the Allied forces had offered armistice terms to Germany, but also given them until 11 a.m. on November 11 to decide whether to surrender.

The UP’s premature release of the news caused an uproar in Germany. It had been suggested that the news be delayed a world release until the German people could be informed, but instead revolts broke out in all the major German cities after the story broke, bringing the entire country to a halt. Kaiser Wilhelm II fled Germany for the Netherlands after abdicating his throne, and the crown prince was forced to abdicate just hours later. Germany subsequently became a republic.

Ferdinand Foch, the French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during WWI, accepted the German surrender at 11 a.m. (Paris time) on November 11. Terms of the armistice required German forces to be evacuated from all invaded territories, and all air and sea craft returned to stipulated points on German soil; reparation for damage done to invaded countries and Allied and American vessels; the surrender of a vast amount of weapons and equipment; and the abandonment of all treaties forced on occupied countries by Germany during the war. And Germany had 30 days to make it happen.

The French palace at Versailles was chosen as the site for signing the official peace treaty, and on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that led to the war’s beginning, Germany and the Allied powers formally ended World War I.

Snowstorm traps hunting party in Blue Mountains

A large hunting party endured a struggle for survival after a blizzard marooned them for 10 days in the snowbound wilderness in the Blue Mountains near Pomeroy, Wash., in November of 1945.

Several groups of elk hunters ignored warnings of an impending snowstorm on November 10, 1945, and were camping on a mountaintop in the Blue Mountains northeast of Walla Walla when the storm hit. When it became obvious that they wouldn’t make it out of the mountains immediately, the groups banded together to share expertise and supplies.

Lester Riley, a Snake River cattle rancher, started out on horseback for Pomeroy to bring help. He fought through snowdrifts up to 40 feet deep and arrived in Pomeroy with his horse almost dead from exhaustion. He spent $600 to arrange for a bulldozer to attempt to clear the road back to where his fellow hunters remained huddled together for warmth and protection. Three days later, the dozer bucked through the last huge drifts to where 25 cars belonging to the parties were buried under the snow.

By Saturday, Nov. 17, the party was digging out the cars and rationing what food was left amongst them. The cars assembled into a caravan on Sunday morning and started for Pomeroy with the bulldozer clearing the road ahead. By Sunday night the caravan had made it three miles, and was forced to sleep overnight in the limited protection of their vehicles. Meanwhile, Washington Governor Monrad Wallgren and state game commissioner Virigl Bennington had arranged with the Walla Walla airbase for the use of three rotary snowplows, which started out from Pomeroy to meet the party coming the other way.

By late Monday the hunters were battling 70-mile-an-hour gales that dropped visibility to a few feet in front of them. They were frequently required to leave the safety of their cars to shovel by hand while the bulldozer labored ahead of them. A string of mules carrying supplies got off the road in the storm, and five of them plunged over a cliff to their deaths. Two more mules were lost but ultimately recovered, one of them weighed down by its pack and kicking feebly out of a snowdrift. Both were saved.

The hunting party had struggled just another three miles through the drifts before meeting the rotary snowplows and an army rescue party late Monday evening.

Members of the party praised Lester Riley for risking his life to ride for help, and Otis Banks, the mule skinner, who several times rescued people who became bogged down in the snow. Casualties in the party included a woman who suffered a heart attack, a man who contracted pneumonia, another with a broken leg, and a third with a ruptured kidney. All were treated at local hospitals.

J.C. Coleman of Kelso, Wash., said, “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for this experience, but I wouldn’t give two cents to do it again. It was the most terrible thing I’ve ever been through.”

Locals bend the elbow for arm-wrestling competition

A group of 27 muscle-bound competitors gathered at the Blacksmith Tavern in Pendleton for an arm-wrestling tournament on July 27, 1977, pitting local amateurs against some stalwart veterans of the sport.

There was the usual bending of elbows ... and then there was the elbow bending done at the arm wrestling table. Hopeful men (and a few women as well) flexed their deltoids in front of a whooping, hollering crowd before settling down to business. The tournament pitted competitors against each other in several weight classes, from featherweight (150 pounds and under) all the way up to heavyweight (200+ pounds), and a separate women’s division.

Bill Hamby and Doug Shade discovered that muscle isn’t all you need to win: Shade lasted less than two seconds against Dwight Crow, and Hamby the same in a second-round match. “He got the jump on me and I gave him a little resistance, but that’s about it,” Hamby said.

Organizer Gary Setbacken was an old hand in the arm-wrestling game. He participated in the World Wrist Wrestling Championships in Petaluma, Calif., one year and lasted all the way to the fourth round. “It’s not just strength,” Setbacken said. “There’s a hell of a lot of technique to it. The more experienced man can take a bigger guy.”

Lane Porter, a former Pendleton High School wrestler and football player, won the light-heavyweight class and suggested that lifting weights helped him.

“Yeah, lifting 12 ounce weights,” ribbed Mike Bridges, hoisting a beer.

Mike Schubert, winner of both the lightweight and heavyweight divisions, touted his job as a diesel mechanic as the secret to his success. And Joe Davis, the East Oregonian photographer, told of his own arm-wrestling defeat at the hands of a skinny, wiry guy who happened to set choker cables for a living.

Craig Christiansen savored his championship in the featherweight division, letting the beer drip from his head and shirtless chest as he let out a howl. “I’ve been waiting for this. I took off six pounds to get under the limit (150 pounds),” he said, wasting no time putting them back on with another victory beer. He had psyched himself up for a match with Crow and managed to outlast the veteran wrestler, breaking Crow’s year-long win streak.
“I’ll be back,” Crow promised, “and I’ll take him.”

The seminfinal women’s bout featuring Elaine Case was the biggest crowd-pleaser. Case was within a couple of inches of the table when she came all the way back to beat her opponent in a grueling match. “She had me all the way down,” she said, “but I didn’t want to get beat in front of my husband.” She emerged the women’s champion at the end of the tournament.

Mike Schubert, red of face and white of knuckle, takes his challenger to the table during an arm-wrestling tournament July 27, 1977, at the Blacksmith Tavern in Pendleton. Schubert won both the lightweight and heavyweight divisions during the contest. (EO file photo)

Hotel clerk pummeled by petite pugilist

A woman who took offense at being told to quiet down by the night clerk at Pendleton’s Bowman Hotel in October of 1911 didn’t need the help of a man to get her forceful message across, much to the clerk’s chagrin.

Louis King, the night clerk at the Bowman Hotel, was sleeping on the afternoon of October 9, 1911, as was his wont before his shift at the hotel’s front desk. At around 5 p.m., boisterous laughter from what he decided was the room of Adele Pefferle woke him from his slumber. King went to Pefferle’s room and gave her a tongue-lashing, and requested that she be quieter. He then came downstairs to the hotel lobby.

Pefferle, a former member of the Boston Bloomers, ex-mascot of the Pendleton hose team and an imitator of men in many ways, took offense at King’s accusation. She followed him down to the lobby and denied she had been making the noise that disturbed him. An argument ensued, King repeating his accusations and Pefferle refusing to back down. Finally King accused Pefferle of being drunk.

And then the fisticuffs began.

Pefferle lashed out with her right fist, knocking King’s glasses off but leaving him more surprised than injured. “Was I drunk?” the offended woman demanded. When King declared she indeed was, Pefferle hit him again. And again. “You can’t say that to my face,” the incensed woman cried, punctuating each repeat of her assertion with another full-armed swing. By this time her hat had come off and her hair was askew, adding to her generally ferocious appearance.

King did not fight back, gentlemanly behavior restraining him, but he did attempt to end the fight by grabbing her arm. But Pefferle was no shrinking violet, and King found that restraining her was no easy task. Finally the day clerk came to King’s assistance and the attack was stopped.

Pefferle was asked to leave the hotel, but she refused to budge. A visit from Officer Kearney finally convinced her to pack her bags and take Train No. 17 for The Dalles that evening.

Pefferle, the daughter of a Spokane dentist, was no stranger to Pendleton — or to trouble. She had first arrived in town from Baker City in 1897 at the age of 15, and became the mascot of Pendleton’s famed hose racing team when she punched a man who made a jeering remark about the team. Later she joined the Boston Bloomers, a women’s touring baseball team that appeared at Weston’s Pioneer Picnic in 1909. After being run down by an ambulance in Salt Lake City at the age of 21, the scars she received ended her vaudeville career, and she took to wearing men’s clothing to find work. She was arrested for vagrancy in 1910 in Portland while masquerading as a man under the name of Joe Howard. Her final stay in Pendleton began with the 1911 Round-Up and ended just days after she gave a up a waitressing job at the hotel that finally sent her packing.

Noon siren falls silent

A Pendleton tradition came to an end when city officials decided not to move a warning siren to the new city hall complex in October 1996.

Pendleton’s noon siren was a long-standing tradition. The city-wide alert system began with a bell atop the old city hall at the turn of the century to call reserve and volunteer firefighters to their work. The bell was eventually replaced by a siren, with the old bell gracing the front of the Court Street fire station. The original siren was replaced by an air raid siren in the 1950s. And from 1962 to 1994, controls at the downtown fire station were used for the siren to indicate where a fire was burning. From then until October of 1996, the siren still was tested each day (except Sundays) at noon.

But when the new city hall complex was opened, the Pendleton City Council decided that the $10,000 bill to move the siren to the new digs was more than they could justify. The siren would blast its last on Oct. 31.

Fire Chief Dick Hopper, who suggested the siren be disconnected, wasn’t sorry to see the tradition put to rest. “I’m sure you’ve been downtown when it’s gone off. It just about drops you to your knees.”

Immediately, supporters of the siren made their voices heard. “They are taking a part of me away,” said Jenny Hogge, who lived and worked near the noon whistle all her life. “I think it’s sad and I think it’s a part of Pendleton.”

Rachel Lawrence, manager of Maurices clothing store, said she would miss the reaction of unsuspecting tourists who weren’t prepared for the siren’s shriek. And “I know my employees are late if they come in when the whistle blows.”

Jim Sewell, the former restaurateur who bought the old city hall building, said he received hundreds of phone calls and letters asking that he continue the noontime tradition, including a packet from fourth grade students at Hawthorne Elementary School. And Sewell said he would be happy to keep the building-shaking blast a part of Pendleton’s day. “I don’t mind running the siren at all,” Sewell said, though he added he would like the city to help with its maintenance.

The siren kept its daily vigil until the late 2000s, when it was sold to a private party.

Two-time Nobelist returns home for honor

Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist, returned to his roots in October 1988 when his hometown of Condon, Ore., named the town’s airport after their most famous native son.

The legendary scientist, whose discoveries about the nature of chemical bonds brought him international fame, was humbled by Condon’s honor.
At dedication ceremonies for the Condon State Airport-Pauling Field on Oct. 15, 1988, Pauling gave credit to the teachers who fostered his love of learning. “I may very well owe a lot of my understanding of the nature of the world to the introduction I received in Condon,” Pauling said.

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Linus Pauling speaks to about 200 people during a dedication ceremony at Condon State Airport-Pauling Field in Condon, Ore., on Oct. 15, 1988. The airport was renamed to honor Pauling, a former resident. (EO file photo)

Dedication organizers, including Oregon Waste Systems, chose Pauling for the honor because he “personifies the strong will the Condon community has, the desire to improve itself and its emphasis on educational goals.” OWS was lured to Gilliam County after the Condon airport spent a million dollars to accommodate larger, corporate aircraft.

Pauling was accompanied to the dedication by his daughter Linda Kamb and two sisters who lived in western Oregon. The Gilliam County Historical Society presented the 87-year-old scientist with a brick embedded with a red cross and a nickel, which was originally part of the walkway in front of his father Herman Pauling’s Red Cross Drug Store. Pauling remembered the nickel especially, because “he could never get it out.” In return, Pauling presented the historical society with a cut glass bowl saved from the store by his sister during a 1908 fire.

The Pauling family lived in Condon until 1909, when they relocated to Portland. Pauling attended the Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis in 1922 and later the California Institute of Technology, where he received his Ph.D. His book “The Nature of the Chemical Bond,” published in 1932, and his work on the nature of matter won him his first Nobel Prize, in chemistry, in 1954. He won his second, a Nobel Peace Prize, in 1962 for his efforts in trying to effect a ban on nuclear testing.

Pauling in his later years also became known for espousing megadoses of Vitamin C to prevent the common cold and flu, publishing “How to Live Longer and Feel Better” in 1987.

He died Aug. 19, 1994, at the age of 93, at his home in Big Sur, California. His ashes, along with those of his wife Ava, were interred at Oswego Pioneer Cemetery in Lake Oswego, Ore.

Ladies take to the gridiron for Homecoming bout

Pendleton High School’s normally tame female population put aside their minis, midis and maxis for oversized jerseys and pants on Oct. 12, 1970, to show their male counterparts just what girls are made of during a ladies-only football game at Pendleton’s Round-Up stadium.

Two teams, Krout’s Crusaders and Johnson’s Baby Power, fought with all the scruples of cornered alley cats during the Powder Puff football game held in conjunction with Homecoming festivities at the high school. The determination and killer instinct were so palpable that many pro linebackers would have passed on tangling with the tiny but terrifying players. But instead of tackling and wrestling each other to the ground, the competitors had to be (mostly) satisfied with yanking ribbons from each other’s belts.

Fierce competitors battle for supremacy during an Oct. 12, 1970, Powder Puff football game at Round-Up stadium in Pendleton (EO file photo)

And what convinced the ladies to shuck “sugar and spice” for jerseys and flags? “Cause it’s rough!” said Edith Hoptowit.

Sally Simpson agreed. “Feminine sports aren’t rough enough.”

“Fun to get out and grub around,” said Liz Morrow.

Abby Hagen put a political spin on the event, adding, “Women are being liberated everywhere else.”

Another competitor, sporting a bruise, commented that you can’t judge a book by its cover. “Some of the girls carry on in the halls at school like something fragile. But put them in a pair of pants out here and brother, they’re tough!”

Krout’s Crusaders won 30-6.

Lawyers turn on one of their own for a laugh

A group of early-day Pendleton lawyers had a bit of fun at the expense of one of their own, according to a story in the Sept. 23, 1816 Round-Up Souvenir Program. What started as a practical joke devolved into two trials and many rounds of “spiritual sustenance.”

“Judge” Templeton, a justice of the peace in Meadows (now Echo) in 1877, was having a little trouble getting the Umatilla County court to pay him for services rendered after he presided over a trial for a suspected horse thief. The evidence against Tom Burns was so inconclusive that Templeton felt he had to let the man go. Templeton filled out a bill for presentation to the county court, but it was rejected for some triviality.

Templeton traveled to Pendleton and retained attorney Jim Turner to make out a proper bill and demand payment from the court. After what he thought was an appropriate lapse of time, he returned to Pendleton and requested his payment. Turner told him the court had yet to meet again since Templeton last was in town.

Disgruntled, Templeton adjourned to the nearest saloon and shared a few rounds with some of his friends. After he shared his troubles in collecting on his bill from the court, one of his companions saw the chance to have a little fun with Templeton and suggested that perhaps Turner was holding out on him. Templeton, incensed, declared he would arrest Turner for embezzlement.

Templeton strode to the county courthouse and, seating himself in the judge’s chair, made out a warrant charging his attorney with embezzlement. He appointed Ben Beagle a special constable to bring in the accused, and Turner arrived shortly after with Judge B.B. Bishop as his counsel. Turner pleaded not guilty, and told his side of the story from the witness stand. Templeton suggested that perhaps Turner wasn’t confining himself to the truth. Turner immediately called Templeton a “dam liar.”

Templeton promptly fined Turner $20 for contempt of court. Turner slapped a $20 dollar coin on the table, which his counsel pocketed, to the amazement of the assembled courtroom. Bishop then moved for dismissal, stating that Templeton had no jurisdiction in Pendleton, and thus could not try a case, much less assess a fine for contempt.

Templeton grudgingly had to admit Bishop was right. “Constable Beagle,” he shouted in his wrath, “adjourn this court, release the prisoner and when once we get out of this blasted courtroom I’ll lick the liver and lights out of him.” The court was at once adjourned amidst a roar of laughter. The lawyers, jury, judge and constable then crossed the street to Jacob’s saloon.

Instead of a fight, it was decided that Turner should be punished by spending the $20 coin on drinks and other refreshments for the lot of them. But that was not the end of Templeton’s troubles.

After several rounds the barkeeper, who had been put up to it, complained that he had been robbed and ordered all the doors closed and the patrons searched. After a diligent search, a collection of silver spoons, tumblers and other bar furnishings were found in Templeton’s pockets. A kangaroo court was immediately convened, with Turner acting as prosecuting attorney, S.L. Morris the judge, and Templeton providing his own counsel. In spite of a vigorous defense, Templeton was found guilty.

Templeton threatened a motion to appeal, which “Judge” Morris refused to entertain. But on a recommendation by the jury for mercy, Morris imposed a fine for petty larceny, $5, and ordered that it be spent on further supply of spiritual sustenance for the court officers.

And Templeton’s original bill? It was paid to him in due time.

Body in Umatilla River thought to be escaped prisoner

Unusually low water in the Umatilla River in September 1952 led to the discovery of the body of a man missing for four years after escaping from police custody near the Eastern Oregon State Hospital in Pendleton.

State police and county officers were called to the scene of a body found in the Umatilla River on September 22, 1952, by two fishermen just below the Billy Osborne ranch, a former frog farm, east of Barnhart. Fishermen in that area of the river had complained to state police of a peculiar odor over the previous few years. The body was in a hole, partially wedged in an old log jam.

The body was believed to be that of James Arthur McKinney, 48, a transient originally from Antlers, Okla., who escaped from Deputy Sheriff Roy Johnson May 16, 1948, and plunged into the Umatilla River near the state mental institution. McKinney had been arrested in the hamlet of Rieth just west of Pendleton after police received a tip that he was selling whiskey and other articles illegally.

Johnson was transporting McKinney by car to Pendleton when McKinney fired a small tear gas cartridge from a “fountain pen” gun at him and escaped. State policeman Joseph Wark saw McKinney jump into the Umatilla and disappear from view, but a search for him over the next few days was fruitless.

An examination of the partially intact remains pulled from the river revealed that the body was the same general size and hair color and wearing the same type of clothing as in McKinney’s description. Though the skull was skeletonized, the body had been partially covered in mud, which preserved some of the flesh and clothing. Identification by means of the teeth was impossible, as the body had no teeth and McKinney also wore dentures, which he did not have in his mouth when he made his escape in 1948.

The body was taken to a local funeral home for disposition, and no inquest into the death was expected to take place.

Chuckwagon race a new feature at 1925 Round-Up

How much fire does it take to make coffee boil?

That was the question that a new spectacle at the Pendleton Round-Up was meant to answer in September of 1925. But boiling coffee was only part of the event.

Racers in fully loaded chuck wagons, pulled by four horses, had to follow a figure-eight course around the inside of the Round-Up Arena, driving around empty barrels placed at either end of the course without knocking them over. Twice around the figure-eight, the teams then raced one lap around the track. Finally, each team had to stop, build a fire, and boil coffee. The fastest time, of course, would win the day.

The judges pondered the best kind and size of fire for the coffee portion of the race, and decided to build several different sized fires to see which would boil the most coffee the fastest. Participants in the race were allowed to watch the judges’ trials to determine for themselves what kind of fire they would use.

But there was a catch, of course: The fire must be built using materials traditionally used by a chuck wagon. No canned heat, gasoline or coal oil were permitted, although the racers were allowed to use modern matches to start their blazes.

The event was held Friday, Sept. 18 and, though no details made the East Oregonian, Art Hoegee was named the winner, with a time of 1 minute and 43 seconds.

While the chuckwagon races are no longer part of the Pendleton Round-Up, chuckwagon racing is now a popular event in Canada, with its own professional association, and an annual part of the Calgary Stampede. In its current form, each team includes a chuckwagon with a driver pulled by four horses and two or four outriders. The outriders “break camp” by throwing two tent poles and a barrel representing a camp stove into the chuckwagon, which then takes off for the figure eight. The outriders must mount their horses and catch up to the wagon, with penalties for knocking over barrels, interfering with a wagon, camp equipment not being loaded or being lost during the race, or outriders crossing the finish line too far behind their wagon. Boiling coffee is no longer a part of the event.

Three or four teams race at the same time, which creates a lot of excitement but also ups the danger factor. Horses, drivers, outriders and even spectators have been killed during chuckwagon races. The Calgary Stampede works closely with local SPCA and humane society staff to ensure the horses are fit and able to race.

Birthday surprise is just what the doctor ordered

A 19-year-old Pendleton man received a once-in-a-lifetime birthday surprise from his music teacher in September 1974 while recovering from brain surgery.

Matt Neal’s 19th birthday party on Sept. 7, 1974, was a casual affair, attended by his family and a few local celebrities, including Pendleton football coaches Don Requa and Gary Yates and state superintendent of public instruction Jesse Fassold, friends of the Neal family. A bevy of Neal’s admirers of the female persuasion perched about the room.

Also in attendance was Shirlene McMichael, Neal’s piano teacher for eight years and the director of the Pendleton High School orchestra, for which Neal played string bass. McMichael brought a very special gift to the party: a white sweatshirt signed by players on the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team.

Matt Neal of Pendleton, left, is all smiles after receiving a sweatshirt autographed by the Portland Trail Blazers for his birthday Sept. 7, 1974. (EO file photo)

 When his sister Darcy pointed out a small “Bill Walton” on the sweatshirt, Neal’s eyes grew several sizes larger and the biggest smile of his life flashed across his face. “That’s pretty nice,” he said softly.

Neal met the former UCLA All-American and NBA legend in a Portland hospital after a relapse from surgery to remove a brain tumor in March 1974. Walton was in the hospital recovering from knee surgery. The two became fast friends. McMichael contacted the Trail Blazers with the idea of an autographed sweatshirt to help speed Neal’s recovery, which doctors cautioned could take several months.

“Sports is just about that kid’s whole life,” McMichael said. “I thought it would be a neat thing to do for him, especially since he already knows Walton.”

Not all of the Blazers signed the sweatshirt, since most were out of Oregon for the off-season, but McMichael did manage to get signatures of John  Johnson, Rick Roberson, Greg Smith and Larry Steele, in addition to Walton’s. A representative of the Blazers organization was working with McMichael to gather the rest of the players’ signatures when they returned for fall training camp in Portland.

Native woman named queen in Round-Up first

Pendleton is famous world-wide for its iconic Round-Up, held the second week of September each year since 1910. Every year, a group of local beauties is chosen by the Round-Up Association to act as local royalty, with a queen and her court of princesses serving as ambassadors for the rodeo. For the first 25 years, the Round-Up court was chosen from the daughters of socially prominent families in the Pendleton area. But in 1926, Pendleton’s original inhabitants were brought to the fore when a Cayuse Indian was named to head the Round-Up court for the first time.

Esther Motanic reigned as the queen of the 1926 Pendleton Round-Up, the first Native American woman to hold the title (EO file photo).

Esther Motanic, the daughter of famous Indian athlete Parsons Motanic, was chosen to represent the Pendleton Round-Up for the 1926 rodeo. An enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, her heritage included Nez Perce, Cayuse, Walla Walla and Umatilla ancestry. An intelligent and talented young woman, Esther was also the first Native American to graduate from Pendleton High School.

Motanic moved to Arizona after graduation to work for the U.S. Indian Service, teaching in government schools on the Navajo reservation in Valentine, Ariz. She returned to Pendleton each September for the annual Round-Up, and in 1924 was the winner of the annual American Indian Beauty Contest.

A newspaper article in the Aug. 17, 1926 East Oregonian described Esther as a rare beauty with high intelligence. “Well educated, a brilliant conversationalist and writer, this maid attracts attention wherever she goes. She is a much-besought guest of her white sisters, and is as much at home in their drawing rooms as she is among the teepees of her own people.” She was also a talented mezzo-soprano and violinist, performing in churches wherever she lived.

And while she had suitors from tribes throughout the region, she chose Glenn Lewis, whom she met in Arizona, as her husband. They married in 1927 and had four children. Esther and Glenn moved from reservation to reservation during their marriage, including stays in Montana, South Dakota and Newberg, Ore. After Glenn’s death in 1971, Esther returned home to Mission. She died in 1988 at the age of 87.

In 2013, Esther Motanic’s contribution to Pendleton history was memorialized with a bronze statue placed on the Pendleton Bronze Trail, located on a traffic island at the eastern approach to downtown Pendleton near Til Taylor Park on Southeast Court Avenue.

Gold strike thought to be legendary Blue Bucket Mine

A group of prospectors at a gold strike near Dale, Ore., in September of 1936 believed their claim was the fabled Blue Bucket Mine discovered by a pioneer family heading west on the Oregon Trail.

R.H. Russell of Spokane, along with Franz Hailberg, C.W. Curl and Bart Crisman, struck gold 16 miles east of Dale in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon during the summer of 1936. Hailberg and his brother had set out with $50 in their pocket and fellow prospectors Curl and Crisman, who had searched for the Blue Bucket Mine their entire lives.

According to Russell, the mine near Dale was producing a great deal of gold. A team including 10 workers had, in six or seven weeks, dug out 50 sacks weighing 150 pounds apiece that were hauled to a smelter at Tacoma for processing. The gold was valued at $210,000 per ton, and Russell said the mine was being guarded night and day.

“This sounds like a dream, but it’s true,” Russell said. He related the group’s good fortune during a visit to Pendleton on Sept. 3, 1936, where he was gathering truckloads of lumber and supplies to establish a permanent camp at the mine.

The legend of the Blue Bucket Mine began in the summer of 1845, with a family that was traveling west by ox team and camped overnight at Desolation Creek after getting lost off the Meek Cutoff of the Oregon Trail. The children of the family spent a day hunting berries (or water, in some versions of the story), carrying with them a blue bucket. The bucket was left behind when the settlers broke camp, and later travelers allegedly found gold nuggets mixed in amongst the berries. The travelers thought the rocks the children had picked up were copper ore. An exhaustive years-long search was unable to unearth the mine itself.

Other versions of the legend place the possible site of the mine along the Malheur River, the Bear Creek tributary of the Crooked River in Crook County, or a tributary of the John Day River. All versions agree that the coarse placer gold was found in a dry stream bed or canyon bottomed with lava pocked with cavities and potholes. The story set off a gold rush to the area of present-day Baker City, Ore.

Three mines named Blue Bucket exist in the U.S., including one in Grant County, Ore., though none of those are related to the legendary mine.

Young entrepreneurs open ‘scary business’

A quartet of youthful businessmen spent the summer of 1967 selling items of a distinctly creepy nature to their friends and neighbors on Pendleton’s North Hill.

Brian and Craig French and Larry and Kenny Stoddard set up shop and displayed their wares on a sunny Aug. 26, 1967 afternoon for East Oregonian reporter Celia Currin in front of the French home on Northwest Ingram Avenue. “We’re sold out of bees,” said one small salesman regretfully. But the table was still loaded with mosquitoes, scorpions, cockroaches, ants, snakes and spiders in a variety of colors. They even considered special orders.

Kenny Stoddard, Brian and Craig French, and Larry Stoddard display their "scary" wares in August 1967. (EO file photo)

The bug collection was not only being sold by the quartet, but they made their own stock in the basement of the French home (“the lab”) using a kit Brian French got for his birthday. “It’s kept the boys busy and content all summer,” said Ardyth French. “They go downstairs for eight and 10 hours a day and just come up for meals.”

The Creepy Crawlers kit came with liquid plastic in six colors that is poured into molds and baked in a hot plate-like oven, then cooled in a bowl of water. “You can use them to scare your sisters,” Larry Stoddard offered. “You put one in their bed, they go to bed and then they scream.”

Do they always scream? “Nancy does,” said Larry.

And the boys didn’t stop with creepy crawlies. Another kit received by Kenny Stoddard for Christmas, Fighting Men and All Their Equipment, diversified their offerings. Though Mrs. Stoddard said a lot of the little pieces, like miniature hats, belts and shovels, ended up inside the family vacuum cleaner.

Their clientele consisted mostly of their families, the neighbors and the cleaning lady. The cost? “Ah, parents can buy them for any price,” said Kenny, though their sign asked for two or three cents apiece.

“That means they hope they can get a quarter,” laughed Mrs. French.

Stubble fire threatens Pendleton

A roaring fire of suspicious origin swept through wheat stubble north of Pendleton in August 1941, scorching a wide swath but causing little damage.

The fire started in the middle of a field on the Meeker farm at about 7:45 p.m. Aug. 21, 1941. The first flames were so far from the road fire crews thought it next to impossible the fire could have started accidentally. A United Airlines flight coming in for a landing at the Pendleton airport was asked to circle the fire and report on its size by Pendleton Fire Chief Blackie Batchelor.

By 9 p.m. the fire was burning fiercely, but a light breeze fanned the flames away from Pendleton’s North Hill water reservoir and homes in the area. The flames burned up to the fence surrounding the Civil Aeronautics Authority’s radio towers, but a fire guard kept the buildings and towers safe.

As the fire spread, eating into stubble on the neighboring Jones estate, flames were leaping several yards into the air and lighting up the entire countryside. Hundreds of Pendleton residents drove to the scene to watch the blaze, which lasted throughout the night and burned a third of Jones’ acreage. The fire, which eventually consumed 1,000 acres of stubble, was put out the following day and did little damage.

A more destructive fire was started earlier the same day by children playing with matches in a woodshed behind the home of George Bradley on Southwest Eighth Street. Flames were beginning to spread to the roof of Bradley’s home when the fire department showed up and knocked it down. Losses were minimal: books, furniture and keepsakes stored in the shed, and minor water damage to the house.

Chief Batchelor warned parents to talk to their children about playing with matches, since often children’s clothing catches fire — sometimes with fatal results.

Troop D takes its first WWI prisoner

He may not have been a German, but a man showing no loyalty to the U.S. during the early days of World War I was shown the inside of the city jail when he badgered cavalry recruits training for their role in Europe.

A man giving only the name W. Walden had stationed himself for several days near the French restaurant in downtown Pendleton. Troop D, a group of cowboys and rodeo stars training as a cavalry unit for overseas duty, ate most of their meals at the restaurant and were the subject of Walden’s sarcastic remarks as they arrived for the evening meal on Aug. 2, 1917.

Walden accosted Private Stubblefield and inquired if there was a trooper called “Rattlesnake Pete” in the unit. When he was told there was, Walden declared his intention of getting “that --- --- ----” on general principles.

Private B.H. Inman, otherwise known as “Rattlesnake Pete,” sauntered forward and challenged Walden to a fight. With the true courage of all members of the Industrial Workers of the World (or IWW), who opposed U.S. involvement in the war, Walden declined Inman’s challenge. When Privates McCrea and McCarty invited him to vamoose, Walden refused with “impertinent” remarks.

Then McCea cleared his right arm for action, and Walden suddenly decided that a hasty retreat was in his best interest after all. But before he could get himself out of range, McCrea hurried him along with a boot applied vigorously to Walden’s backside.

After giving Walden a taste of boot leather, Troop D turned him over to the local authorities, who arrested him on a vagrancy charge and tossed him in the city clink. Walden was grilled by Pendleton Police Chief Roberts and Deputy Sheriff Blakely, who discovered he had most recently been in Pilot Rock, from which town he had been “invited” to leave.

Walden was held for further questioning.

Descendants fulfill Chief Joseph request

Youthful misunderstanding and misplaced pride caused a lifetime of regret for a man who had the chance to make the final years of Chief Joseph’s life happier. His descendants rectified the error after his death in an attempt to bring together two cultures historically at odds.

It began in 1877, when Chief Joseph and his band of Nez Perce had led the U.S. Army a merry chase to within 30 miles of the U.S./Canada border, where the tribe was attempting to find sanctuary from a government determined to sequester the Nez Perce to a reservation in Oklahoma, far from their ancient homeland in the Wallowa Valley in northeast Oregon. The battered tribal band finally surrendered with Chief Joseph’s vow to “fight no more forever.”

An aide de camp to the general who finally stopped Chief Joseph’s flight, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, kept a diary throughout the running battle, and came to respect the Nez Perce chief. Wood’s efforts helped bring Chief Joseph and other Nez Perce tribal members back to the Pacific Northwest, though not to their original lands. The two men struck up a friendship and, in 1889, Wood asked if his son Erskine could spend a summer on the reservation near Nespelem, Wash. Erskine was taken in to Joseph’s own teepee, and given the Indian name Yellow Porcupine.

In 1893, at the age of 14, Erskine Wood returned to the reservation for a second summer. His father, wanting to thank the chief for his generosity, directed Erskine to ask the chief if there was anything he could do to repay him. When Joseph said he wanted a stallion, Erskine was stunned.

“I looked on Joseph as such a great man,” Erskine wrote in his diary. “... I revered him so that I though his request for a stallion was too puny — was beneath him. I thought he ought to ask if my father could do anything to repair the great wrongs done him, perhaps get him back a portion of his Wallowa Valley or something like that. ...”

The request went unanswered, and the next year Erskine went off to school, and the stallion was forgotten. Then Chief Joseph died, and Erskine was consumed by guilt. “A fine stallion which would have upbred Joseph’s herd of ponies would have been a wonderful thing for him,” he wrote. “But just because I exalted him so high, I deprived him of it. ...”

When Ken Burns’ 1996 documentary “The West” ended with Wood’s story of a promise unfulfilled, the Wood family was galvanized into action. Erskine Wood Jr.’s daughter Mary met with representatives of the Nez Perce tribe, and Keith Soy Red Thunder, Chief Joseph’s great-great-grandson, was selected to receive the gift that had been promised, but never given, on behalf of his tribe.

The three-year-old Appaloosa stallion was purchased from a Utah ranch after a nationwide search, financed by $22,000 in donations from the Wood family and their friends. On July 27, 1997, the Wood family and Nez Perce  tribal members gathered at Wallowa Lake to commemorate the gift.

Tribal member Lucinda Pinkham, who lived near the Lapwai Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, said she hoped the gift would bring members from the three Nez Perce reservations together as one people. Bobbi Conners, a Nez Perce living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton, echoed her statement. “We’ve had enough that has caused us to be divided,” Conners said.

Red Thunder told those gathered that the horse signified more than just a promise fulfilled, but a way to unite “white man and red man.”

“We need occasions like this to bring our people together,” he said.

Kidnapper snatches M-F girl from local pool

A five-year-old girl swimming at the community pool in Milton-Freewater was kidnapped in July 1985 by an ex-con and transported to Utah, where she was abandoned in a city park playground the following day.

Amanda Sargent was swimming with her older sisters at the pool in Yantis Park in downtown Milton-Freewater on July 9, 1985. She was last seen around 3 p.m. talking to an older man, who was reported to be driving a 1960s green Chrysler 2-door car. The girl’s parents, Harvey and Phyllis Sargent, and the Milton-Freewater police had no leads in her disappearance.

The following day, Amanda approached a truck driver at a Salt Lake City park saying she had been kidnapped. She told police officers that her abductor dropped her at the park and told her to play while he went to get hamburgers. He never returned. She was placed in foster care until her parents could fly to Utah to pick her up.

Phyllis Sargent said her daughter had been taught how to deal with strangers. “We’ve taught her not to be rude, but cautious, too,” Phyllis said. But Amanda was lured away by her weakness: chocolate ice cream.

Through the description of a witness and a license plate number, Milton-Freewater police were able to identify Patrick Thomas Redmond, 51, who had stayed at a local motel the night before the kidnapping. Redmond had been released from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla the previous October after serving time for robbery, and had been wanted on probation violations since February. His home address was located in Ogden, Utah.

FBI agents arrested Redmond on a federal fugitive warrant July 11 at his home, and his wife Ruth was arrested on suspicion of police interference. She was later released on her own recognizance, but Redmond was booked into the Weber County Jail on a kidnapping charge, a federal offense.

During Redmond’s trial, jurors learned that Amanda had also been molested during the kidnapping, and were further outraged by his defense lawyer’s attempts to intimidate the girl on the witness stand. The jury returned a guilty verdict after just 40 minutes’ deliberation, and Redmond was sentenced to life in federal prison.

Hermiston fisherman lands bonus catch

A Hermiston confectionary store owner and sporting goods dealer reeled in a much larger prize than he was expecting on a fishing trip to Cold Springs Reservoir outside Hermiston in August of 1919.

Henry Hitt was relaxing while fishing for bass on a sunny afternoon on Aug. 19, 1919, trailing a hook baited with a tempting-looking minnow across the wind-blown waves and into the weeds at the shore. One particularly long cast sent his lure out of eyesight, and just as it disappeared Hitt felt a tugging on his line.

Hitt set the hook, assuming the battle was on. But Hitt’s line did not immediately dash for deeper water, and he began to think he had perhaps caught something not of the fishy persuasion  — perhaps a mink, like fellow fisherman Bill Matthews, or a water snake like the one towed in by John Dunning.

As he pulled his line in slowly, Hitt was surprised to see a pelican stroll from behind the bushes, attempting as it walked toward him to eat the minnow without also swallowing the line and the hook.

Hitt captured the bird and removed the hook, then packed his peculiar catch up and took it home. The pelican made itself at home around Hermiston for a time, and Hitt later returned it to its home at the reservoir.

Blacksmith’s spark ignites powder cache

An explosion ripped through a blacksmith’s shop west of Pendleton on July 16, 1907, leaving two brothers badly burned and the shop incinerated.

Brothers Leon and Ed Kidder, ages 19 and 21, were working on a threshing machine in the blacksmith shop on the family farm three miles west of Pendleton along the Umatilla River in preparation for wheat harvest. A spark from the anvil off a red-hot piece of metal fell on a 50-pound can of black powder that had been stored in the shop by another Kidder brother, setting off a horrific explosion.

Leon, the youngest of the brothers, was terribly burned from the waist up and his clothing was burned completely off his body. His injuries were thought to be potentially fatal. Ed, who was further away from the powder cache when it exploded, was also badly scorched on his face and hands, but was expected to survive the blast.

The explosion obliterated the interior of the shop and set the building on fire. A Greek section crew from the O.R. & N railroad working nearby put out the fire while one of their members rode a handcar into town to summon the doctor.

Leon was taken to St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton in serious condition, where the burned skin was removed from his upper body and arms. Unable to lie down because of the extent of his injuries, he was forced to sleep sitting in a chair. Two months later, Leon returned home from the hospital to recover from his burns. His arms were still disabled, but doctors thought his injuries would not be permanent.

Older brother Ed’s burns were not considered serious, and he was ready to begin threshing wheat six days after the blast, on the machine whose repair sparked the explosion.

Gophers develop taste for airport wiring

A new air terminal building was dedicated at the Pendleton airport in June of 1953, but some rascally rodents were determined to make things tough for air traffic controllers and pilots trying to land at the updated airfield.

Part of the upgrades at the airport was a $48,000 high-intensity lighting system for the runways, complete with wiring shielded with a rubber coating specifically designed to deter the predations of the resident gopher population, which had delighted in sharpening their long teeth on the old lead cables. But the rodents were just as cheerful about gnawing the new rubber insulation. “We’ve had pieces of cable that looked like a cob of corn with bites taken out of it,” said city manager Raymond Botch during a city council meeting on June 17, 1953.

The new lighting system had been limited to medium intensity since the beginning of spring, when the newly awakened gophers’ chewing had left the system susceptible to outages at higher intensities. The airport electrical maintenance supervisor, Herb Wiles, complained that extermination would be next to impossible — poison would be too slow and, with thousands of gopher mounds to contend with, cyanide gas would be ineffective.

But he did have an alternate plan. Wiles suggested pouring a concrete casing around the wires, buried about 18 inches underground. At the same time the casing was being laid, a third wire could be added to the two-wire system to solve the problem of large voltage drops and varying light intensities. The contractor who installed the wiring — but only installed two of the three wires requested — would provide a portion of the necessary funds as part of a settlement with the city.

Botch commented that the Pendleton and Walla Walla areas seemed to have more gophers than most other nearby locales.

Button, dust lead to burglary conviction

It was good old-fashioned police work at its best.

Hill Meat Company in Pendleton was burglarized the night of Feb. 14, 1971, and the firm’s safe had been literally torn apart and scattered around the office. Cash totaling $1,800 was stolen.

Oregon State Police officers John Williams and Jim Toddy began their investigation by interviewing W.D. Perkins, the Hill Meat employee that discovered the burglary at 8:15 a.m. Perkins told the officers that an early 1960s beige station wagon had been seen in the company parking lot the evening prior to the theft.

Pendleton police officer Don Isom also saw the car in the area. He had stopped a similar vehicle in the Sherwood area at 4:45 a.m. for running a stop sign. He talked to the car’s two occupants, George Wesley Storms and Inez Guerrero, who Isom said seemed short of breath and nervous. He let them go with a warning. Police soon learned that both men were convicted safe burglars, but the men and the car had vanished.

Meanwhile, OSP investigators at the scene of the burglary found a single black button in the wreckage of the safe. With this and the descriptions of the two suspects, they asked Umatilla County District Attorney R.P. Smith and District Judge Richard Courson for a search warrant. Smith then headed for Portland, where Storms and Guerrero were well known to law enforcement.

The suspect vehicle was spotted at a Portland bar, and Storms was arrested. Portland police seized the vehicle and OSP investigators Williams and Toddy, and Reg Madsen of the state police crime lab, made a thorough search. In the car they found a copy of the Feb. 13 East Oregonian newspaper and some dust, which was collected with a vacuum cleaner.

But that wasn’t enough evidence to make a solid case. So Portland police, armed with a second warrant, raided a home where Storms was known to have visited recently. And there they collected a black jacket with a missing button. Dust in the pockets of the jacket was also collected.

Pendleton police, armed with mug shots of the two suspects, learned that they had been at Hill Meat Co. a few days prior to the burglary, asking for jobs. But the big break occurred when police interviewed Barry Clift at his service station on Southwest Emigrant Avenue, and learned the suspects’ car had stopped there around 7:15 a.m. the morning following the burglary. Clift said one of the men had pockets full of coins and boasted of making “quite a score.”

Crime lab reports matched the black button to the jacket, and the dust in the car and in the pockets of the jacket included particles of fire clay and paint from the ransacked safe.
During Storms’ trial on June 3, 1971, the prosecution called 18 witnesses to the stand. The jury was out only 20 minutes before returning a verdict of guilty. The 44-year-old Storms was sentenced to 10 years in state prison.

Guerrero faced the same charge, but at the time of the trial was being held in a Portland jail on a charge of armed robbery.

Telephone operators save Pilot Rock residents from flood

A cloudburst the afternoon of June 22, 1938, south of Pilot Rock brought a raging torrent of water through the business section of town, demolishing most of the businesses on the south side of Main Street and damaging many homes. No lives were lost and no injuries were suffered, thanks to the efforts of a pair of telephone operators who risked their lives to warn as many of the town’s residents and area ranchers as possible.

An extremely heavy downpour began about 2 p.m., and an hour later there was two feet of water on Main Street. The first hint of danger came from a farmer who warned the Pilot Rock telephone office of heavy rains on Bear Creek, a tributary of West Birch Creek. Operator Erline Gilliland immediately called all their subscribers on those creeks with the news. At 3:15 p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Hans Nielsen, who lived five miles up East Birch Creek, called in a warning of a wall of water headed for town. Chief operator Maud Gilbert immediately called as many residents as they had numbers for to warn them of the coming flood. Most of the area residents were able to race to higher ground, and those remaining did their best to save valuable property and aid the escape of others. Gilliland was sent home to retrieve her belongings while Gilbert continued to man the phones.

The second rush of water hit Pilot Rock between 3:30 and 4 p.m., raising the level of East Birch Creek about 12 feet above normal. Gilbert stayed at her post until the water was a foot high outside the office, then waded to safety with her husband. The Gilberts returned to the telephone office when the water had receded to below their knees, and she continued to route calls and request aid from Pendleton for hours. The flash flood was over in about 20 minutes, but an hour after the crest of the flood had passed there was still a lot of water in the streets and East Birch Creek was running wild over wide swaths of farmland south of town.

Damage estimates to downtown businesses was about $32,000, but ruined cropland south of town also added to the devastation.

Operators Gilbert and Gilliland in May of 1939 were awarded the Theodore N. Vail bronze medals for outstanding public service by Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. In the citation, district manager J.A. Murray recognized their “initiative, courage and devotion to duty in continuing an essential public service under hazardous conditions caused by flood.”

Cloudburst and flood wash out Lexington

Roaming buffalo create havoc on Cabbage Hill

The sight of a herd of buffalo grazing bucolically in a large meadow isn’t something you see every day in Eastern Oregon, but in the early 2000s it was actually a common sight along Interstate 84 in the Blue Mountains near Meacham. A herd of the Western icons could often be seen on the south side of the interstate near the mountain town, owned by Robert Carey of Meacham, who had been raising the buffalo for more than a dozen years in the same locale.

But in 2003, the majestic sight became a nuisance after Carey was cited by officials of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who decided that the herd had reached proportions that were environmentally unsustainable. Soon after receiving the citation, Carey disappeared and the herd gained its freedom from its usual pasturage, running loose on Tribal and private property.

The herd, including both bulls and cows, existed in an official limbo, since they were not considered wildlife and the Oregon Department of Agriculture had not yet classified them as livestock. The reality of the situation, however, is that buffalo can be dangerous and are capable of massive destruction. A mature bull can weigh more than a ton, and cows tip the scales between 1,200 and 1,500 pounds. Buffalo are also extremely athletic and can outrun a horse, despite their bulk. This, and the difficulty of the terrain in which they were wandering, made it a tricky situation for those who would try to round them up.

Several of the residents surrounding Carey’s property had fences demolished and trees and pastures damaged. And buffalo can exhibit a wide variety of temperaments, from completely wild to extremely docile. Several people had had buffalo turn on them — a dangerous proposition.

Carey’s property was foreclosed upon by the former owner, Darrel Sallee of Hermiston, who took charge of the runaway herd. He arranged for a group of the animals who had returned to their original pasture to be slaughtered, and donated the meat to private individuals and Agape House in Hermiston. But Sallee couldn’t keep the remaining 40 animals because of the citation.

A possible solution was posed, a resolution to be presented to the CTUIR government that would allow the Tribes to take over ownership of the herd and maintain them in the Es-cul-pa Creek Wildlife Unit near Tamastslikt Cultural Institute north of Wildhorse Resort and Casino.

Arrowheads keep Pendleton retiree busy

Harold Dobyns, a 70-year-old retired federal wildlife biologist, showed off his singular skill to East Oregonian reporter Virgil Rupp during a May 31, 1965 interview in Pendleton. Dobyns claimed to be one of five or six people in the country who still made arrowheads the ancient way.

Dobyns estimated that he had made more than 50,000 arrowheads over the previous 40 years. He was taught by James Billy of the Umatilla Indian tribe, who was the last of the tribe’s arrowhead makers. And Dobyns said there was one sure way to tell his arrowheads apart from those made by long-ago Native Americans:

“Mine are better.”

Dobyns plucked a palm-sized piece of obsidian from a group of stones collected at Glass Buttes near Burns and along the Paulina-East Lake Road in central Oregon. Cradling it in a leather pad in the palm of his left hand, Dobyns plied a sharpened 10-inch piece of deer antler with his right along the edge of the rock, chipping away pieces of the stone all along the outer edge. As his arrowhead began to take shape, he used smaller, finer antler pieces to make precision chips.

Harold Dobyns displays some of his hand-made arrowheads and the tools he uses to make them on May 31, 1965. (EO file photo)

 Any kind of material that can be chipped can be used to make arrowheads, Dobyns explained, even beer bottle glass, but the finest examples made by Columbia River tribes were made of flint, carnelia and agate.

And fakes are easy to spot, since they aren’t weathered, Dobyns said, but that’s not a sure-fire method of detecting phony arrowheads, since he could turn out a weathered-looking arrowhead using cold cream, certain chemicals and the oven in his kitchen.

It is a hazardous hobby, though. Dobyns related that he’d had two chips of rock lodged in his eyes, and his hands were covered with tiny scars caused by th razor-sharp flakes of stone. But he didn’t like to be idle, so the Pendleton man was pondering a return to the World’s Fair, where he would demonstrate the ancient art.

Author’s note: After publication of last week’s Vault column (“Gravestone confounds Pendleton gardener,” May 19, 2018), intrepid reader Caren Fowler did some investigation and found a Dee Freeman Horwitz, born April 25, 1886, who died Sept. 1, 1983, in Spokane, Wash., at the age of 96.

Further investigation into Ms. Horwitz on Ancestry.com found she was born in Missouri and married at least four times: first to Mr. Horwitz, whose information was not found; second to Charles E. Lewis of Stanfield on June 20, 1928, at age 42; third to Peter Van Dyke of Pullman, Wash., on April 10, 1939 at age 52; and for the fourth time to Charles Summers of Tulare, Calif., on Dec. 5, 1952, at age 66.