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.