Train wreck near Gibbon fatal to two

A passenger train traveling to Pendleton in January of 1946 derailed east of Gibbon, on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, killing two crew members and injuring two more. It was the most serious train accident for the local Union Pacific Railroad section in 20 years.

Passenger train No. 25, traveling westbound on the Union Pacific main line through the Blue Mountains toward Pendleton, derailed four miles east of Gibbon at about 9:50 p.m. Jan. 19, 1946, in the Meacham Creek Canyon section of the track. The 451-ton engine, five mail, baggage and express cars, and one passenger coach were derailed when the train made an abrupt stop and lunged off the tracks, tearing up six cars' worth of track and plowing up the embankment of nearby Meacham Creek. Fortunately, the creek at the point of derailment veered away from the tracks, and none of the derailed cars went in the water.

A passenger train derailed Jan. 19, 1946, near Gibbon northeast of Pendleton, killing two crew members and injuring two more. No passengers were injured in the wreck. It was the worst wreck for the local Union Pacific division in 20 years (EO file photo).

Two men in the locomotive, engineer Clarence R. Rizor and fireman Guy Baum, both of La Grande, died in the accident. Two other railroad employees, Richard Gray of Portland and William Pidcock of Baker, were injured. The derailed passenger coach did not overturn in the accident, and no passengers were injured.

An acetylene torch was required to remove one of the men from the derailed engine, and wreckers from La Grande and Rieth were called to the scene to remove the damaged equipment so track repairs could be made. The rear nine cars of the train, which did not derail, were towed to the Sloan siding. Trains were held at La Grande and Pendleton while the track was under repair. Traffic was re-established on the main line by 12:30 p.m. Jan. 20, but trains were under six-mile-per-hour slow orders on that section.

Hundreds of people walked four miles from Gibbon to view the wreck, so many that UP officials turned some of them back.

UP officials on Jan. 20 began an investigation into the cause of the derailment. Some opinions were heard that perhaps the track had been softened by alternate freezing and thawing in the area, followed by high water three weeks prior to the accident. Others thought that perhaps a faulty rail had given way.

Dam break demolishes town of Rock Creek

A dam break 22 miles west of Baker City in June of 1917 demolished the town of Rock Creek. No one was killed, but damage to buildings and livestock and crop losses ran into the thousands of dollars. The town never recovered.

The first inkling the residents of the tiny burg of Rock Creek, in northeast Oregon, had of impending danger on June 27, 1917, was a wall of onrushing water barreling toward town at 8:45 a.m. Trees 75 feet long were tossed end over end as the flood carried tons of debris down the canyon toward the lowlands. 

Rock Creek citizens saw the water coming and moved to higher ground but the town itself was flattened, losing the pool hall, church, hotel, store, blacksmith shop and lodge hall as well as many smaller buildings. As the canyon widened and leveled out, the flood slowed and little damage resulted in the lowlands near Haines, but debris and animal carcasses were deposited up to three miles downstream. 

By 2 p.m. officials investigating the cause of the flood determined that the Killimacue Lake dam had broken in the mountainous region west of Baker. The exit of the lake was dammed in 1917 to facilitate additional irrigation storage for local farmers, and the lake was full to the top of the dam. A strong western wind blew up the day of the disaster, whipping up waves and crowding the water over the dam until it breached, releasing 12 million gallons of water on the unsuspecting valley below. When the dam was inspected, it was found a section of the dam 40 feet wide and 10 feet deep had broken. 

Some residents speculated that the dam had been blown up. A laborer named Gray was arrested by officials of the company owning the dam, but he provided a solid alibi and was released.

The damage inflicted on the once-bustling town of Rock Creek, the decline of the mining industry in the area and the advent of the automobile meant the residents had little incentive to rebuild. A township remains just outside of Haines, but no incorporated town exists.

'Young riot' erupts in Umatilla County Jail

A penitentiary inmate returned to Pendleton in January 1971 to testify against a fellow prison escapee slashed his wrist and touched off a three-hour riot at the Umatilla County Jail. While damages ran to four figures, no other inmates or jail personnel were injured.

The trouble began Jan. 3, 1971, at about 9 p.m. when Danny Wayne Wilcox Clark, 20, broke out of his cell. Clark somehow obtained a razor blade and used it to slash his wrist. He then barricaded himself inside his cell, armed with a sharp piece of steel torn from a ceiling light fixture to keep help away. By the time deputies subdued Clark with tear gas, his cell was spattered on the floor, walls and ceiling with blood. The man was taken to the hospital to have his cut dressed, then was returned to the jail where he lay, gray-faced and quiet, in another cell.

Clark had been returned from the Oregon State Penitentiary to Pendleton to testify against Albert Leo Palmer, who with Clark escaped from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Clark was convicted of grand larceny after stealing a car in Stanfield during the escape attempt. Both men were arrested in Umatilla County, and Clark was sentenced to an eight-year term.

About 15 other prisoners were lodged at the jail when Clark was subdued, and six to 10 of them started an uproar. The "young riot," as it was called by Umatilla County Sheriff Roy Johnson, raged for almost three hours. Toilets were torn from the floor and broken into pieces. The chunks were hurled through barred windows on the south side of the jail.

Prisoners rolled up magazines, tipped with aluminum foil, and shorted out ceiling light fixtures, breaking bulbs and sending the cells into darkness. Some fixtures were torn from the ceiling, and piles of magazines, books and other items were set afire, filling the jail with smoke. Some of the burning material was thrown through the broken windows, deputies said, in an attempt to set the roof of the courthouse on fire.

"They slammed doors, banged on the bars, shouted," a gray-haired prisoner said. "Then they started the fires." He and two trustees covered their heads with wet towels and retreated to a corner bunk to wait out the trouble. Chief Deputy Bill McPherson took charge of putting down the disturbance, and fellow deputies praised his "cool judgment" for the fact that no one was injured or killed.

By 12:30 a.m., the rioters had worn out and the trouble fizzled, but it wasn't until almost 6 a.m. before total control was finally reestablished. More than seven garbage cans full of broken glass, charred paper and other debris were removed from the jail, with deputies standing guard with shotguns during the cleanup.

Sheriff Johnson pointed to the need for a jail redesign to handle troublesome prisoners. Corners were cut to save money when the jail was built in 1956, he said. "We get men here as tough as any in the penitentiary."

But the Jan. 3 unrest was not the first of the year for the jail. Just two days prior, on New Year's Day 1971, troublemakers in the juvenile section of the jail shredded a blanket and flushed it down a toilet, plugging up the plumbing.

Divorce drama becomes firearm fracas

Divorces can be ugly. A Pendleton woman in January of 1954 discovered divorces can also be dangerous, after she was shot by the jealous wife of a neighbor.

Juanita Julia Harris, 34, of Pendleton, filed divorce papers against her husband, Willie Harris, in December 1953. But three weeks later she changed her mind and decided she wanted her husband back. The Harrises and a neighbor, Daisy Crawford, 23, were playing cards together on Jan. 4, 1954, in the Harris apartment for about two hours. Juanita left the game briefly to visit the bathroom outside the apartment, and when she returned she was met by Daisy at the front door. Juanita said it appeared Daisy was going to strike her.

Juanita pulled a .38 short revolver out of her clothing and fired through the narrow opening between the door and the jamb, hitting the coffee pot dead center. She then reached around the nearly closed door and fired again, hitting Daisy in the shoulder. Juanita also fired two more shots through the door, neither of which hit anyone. The shot that hit Daisy clipped her collar bone, nipping off the end of the bone, and lodged in her neck.

Willie Harris decided at this point it was time to disarm his wife. He opened the door — and was met by the muzzle of the gun. Willie claims Juanita pulled the trigger and it snapped on an empty chamber. Convinced all the bullets had been fired, Willie wrestled the gun away from Juanita, then hit her over the head with it three times to subdue her.

By this time, a neighbor had called police. When officers arrived, Willie was trying to get Daisy into the car to take her to the hospital. Pendleton police arrested Juanita Harris, then followed Willie and Daisy to the hospital. After Juanita was checked out by doctors, and Daisy was admitted for treatment, both Harrises were taken to the police station for questioning.

Juanita admitted shooting Daisy. She claimed she was carrying the gun because she thought Willie and Daisy might try to assault her. She also claimed she did not try to fire at her husband. When the gun was examined, officers found one bullet unexploded in the chamber, with no evidence of a misfire.

The following day, Juanita was charged with assault while armed with a dangerous weapon. Willie was questioned but turned loose. And Daisy was mending nicely at St. Anthony Hospital.

Jack the Snipper strikes close to home

Most people are familiar with the infamous Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. But another dastardly character, who showed up in 1891 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, N.Y., was known by a similar moniker: Jack the Snipper. His penchant was for following schoolgirls and lopping off their braids, then running away. He haunted the streets for three years, surfacing periodically and disappearing again. Two men were arrested, but police could never make any charges stick, so the case went unsolved.

In 1911, the Jack the Snipper story resurfaced in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Police arrested Frank Rickeri, who had for months been cutting off women's hair in theaters and amusement parks. Eighteen locks of hair, each tied with a blue ribbon, were found in a trunk in Rickeri's lodgings.

But the story wasn't confined to the East Coast. On March 9, 1912, Mildred Finnel of Pendleton, a popular high school girl, decided to take in a moving picture show with a friend. As they sat in the theater, she felt someone behind her take hold of one of her long braids. Finnel gave her head a quick jerk, and a man got up from the seat behind her and hurriedly left the building. Finnel and her companion followed the man, and though he was able to disappear they did get a good look at his face. It wasn't until she returned home that she realized that a small portion of her braid had been shorn off. The man was never caught.

"Jack the Snipper" was a familiar annoyance to police departments across the country in the early 1900s. It was unknown whether the attacks were for the purpose of selling the hair to wigmakers, or if their intent was simply malicious or obsessive. In some cases, like the original Snipper in New York, an incident of hair theft was followed by a rash of copycat cases, some of which were perpetrated by the girls themselves in order to see their names in the paper.