Ill-fated barge explodes, workers escape unharmed

One minute they were working as usual. The next minute they were swimming in the frigid waters of the Columbia River near Umatilla. Three men affecting repairs on a river tanker on March 3, 1948, were blown off the deck when the barge exploded for the third time in a year, but all three escaped unscathed except for an icy dunking.

Jack Hinkley, Melvin McCoy and Gene Hiatt, who were working at the opposite end of the barge, were unable to say what caused the explosion that tossed them off the ill-fated “Pendleton,” a 280,000-gallon tanker owned by Tidewater-Shaver Company. Eyewitness George Sawyer, the company’s plant superintendent, reported he saw a reddish-blue flash followed by a series of four explosions. After that he was too busy dodging shrapnel hurled by the exploding craft.

A six-ton portion of the barge’s deck was thrown 500 feet upstream, and another portion, weighing only about four tons, landed about 600 feet downstream. A new 100-ton barge being built on shore about 400 feet from the blast was lifted into the air and moved about two feet. The Captain Al James, a tug that was nearby when the explosion occurred, had all its windows blown out.

A twisted six-ton section of the deck of the "Pendleton" sits 400 feet from the smoking wreckage of the barge after an explosion March 3, 1948, near Umatilla (EO file photo).

The “Pendleton” also was wrecked in June 1948 by a similar blast at the Umatilla facility. And it exploded in Portland earlier that year.

Barge workers (l-r)Jack Hinkley, Melvin McCoy and Gene Hiatt survived the tanker explosion aboard the "Pendleton" that blew them off the deck into the Columbia River (EO file photo).

Hinkley, a tankerman from Umatilla, could only chatter that the water was “damned cold” when he reached shore. McCoy, a welder who also lived in Umatilla, commented that apparently it wasn’t “his time to die.”

Umatilla County town founded by mistake

The city of Adams, located north of Pendleton in Umatilla County, will celebrate its 125th anniversary on Feb. 23, 2018. But the town was actually founded by mistake, according to a written account by a descendant of the town’s first mayor.

Don Lieuallen was the guest speaker at the town’s 100th anniversary celebration on Feb. 21, 1993. According to Lieuallen’s history, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company was building track east from Pendleton and reached the present site of Adams in 1882. There construction was halted while railroad officials debated the best way to cross Dry Creek Canyon northeast of Weston. As the discussion dragged on, winter set in and the work crews erected a few shacks for shelter.

Two entrepreneurial men, I.T. Reese and J.T. Redman, built a general store for the railroad workers. Soon a few houses were built, then saloons showed up, and a livery stable, meat market and feed store appeared. The first confectionery, cigar store and menswear establishment was opened by “Cheap Charlie” Hanson. The Adams Real Estate Association formed in 1883, and John F. Adams’ farm, originally settled in 1865 on the banks of Wildhorse Creek, became the basis for the town plat. Adams was incorporated on Feb. 23, 1883, with Thomas A. Lieuallen as mayor.

By 1901 the city had a population of 500, and boasted a newspaper, three general stores, two blacksmith shops, a drug store, two hotels, a livery stable and saloon.

The 100th anniversary celebration included music, an arts and crafts show, and a reader’s theater presentation of “The Crooked Town,” among other attractions. The opening festivities also featured the presentation of a centennial quilt made by Gilberta Lieuallen, which depicts the city seal surrounded by 16 historic photos depicting early Adams. The quilt is on permanent display in the Adams Friendship Center.

Church locked over priest protest

Churchgoers can be very particular about their parish priests, as Pendleton Catholics discovered in March 1893.

Members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Pendleton wended their way to church as usual on March 12, 1893, only to be turned away. The doors were locked. There was nothing they could do but return home.

Though most of the parishioners were reluctant to talk about the incident, it was discovered that Thomas Milarkey, one of two trustees to whom the church property was deeded, and the only keyholder, had taken affront after his favorite priest, Father Hogan, was moved to another parish and a former pastor, Father DeRoo, was re-posted to serve the Pendleton church.

Determined to make his objection known, Milarkey decided that Father DeRoo would not be allowed to enter the church to conduct mass.

Local parishioners decided to let church authorities handle the incident, and Archbishop Gross was due to arrive in Pendleton later in the week to straighten the matter out.