Youthful driver avoids ticket with a smile

A young motorist terrorized the town of Milton-Freewater in April 1969, but suffered no repercussions for her short-lived spree of destruction.

Mrs. Richard Hunt of Milton-Freewater, "for the first and only time," left her daughter Elizabeth Ann in their automatic-transmission-enabled car with the motor running on April 6, 1969, while she dashed into the Magic Valley Laundry "for a minute." Elizabeth Ann promptly plopped herself in the driver's seat, put the car in reverse and backed about 25 feet, turned left and crossed North Main Street, a busy state highway, and into the driveway of a tire store across the street.

Elizabeth Ann changed her mind, shifted the car into drive, swung left and back into Main Street and sped past the laundry. She then turned into the laundry's 18-foot-wide driveway, speeding neatly between the laundry building and a high wooden fence on the other side.

Her forward progress, however, was impeded by a pickup truck belonging to Bill Reich. Elizabeth Ann hit the pickup, which then crashed into a second vehicle owned by Reich.

Damage to Reich's vehicles was estimated at about $200. Elizabeth Ann's car sustained only minor damages, and the young motorist none at all.

When the investigating officer arrived at the scene of the crash, Elizabeth Ann flashed him a dazzling smile. Not only did the officer not give Elizabeth Ann a ticket, but he, her still-trembling mother, two horrified witnesses and Reich gave fervent thanks that Elizabeth Ann hadn't hit a building or two in her spree.

Elizabeth Ann Hunt, you see, was 18 months old.

Cayuse chief dies in Chicago accident

A prominent chief of the Cayuse tribe on the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton accidentally caused his own death in a Chicago hotel while traveling to testify before the government about tribal land sales in February 1920.

Yumsumkin, the chief of the Cayuse tribe and thought to be one of the wealthiest tribal members in the area, was traveling from Pendleton by train to Washington, D.C., in February of 1920 of his own accord to object to the methods being used by the U.S. government for selling and leasing Indian lands. Yumsumkin, who also went by the name Johnson Sumkin, and whose Indian name meant "Grizzly Bear's Shirt," lived on his property about a mile south of Adams — 320 acres of the best land in the section. He also had a financial interest in another 80-acre tract on the reservation. His net worth was estimated at $80,000.

The 65-year-old Cayuse chief had stopped in Chicago on his way to the nation's capitol, and it was there he met his untimely end. Before going to bed, it was reported that he blew out the pilot for the light, and was asphyxiated by the gas while he slept. News of his death was wired to Indian Agency Superintendent E.L. Swartzlander on Feb. 25.

"He was wealthy, very smart and very shrewd," said Major Lee Moorhouse, the former Indian agent, when told of Yumsumkin's death. "He always held onto his lands and wanted the other Indians to do likewise. He was on his way to Washington to personally seek relief from the system which allows the Indians to sell out and then find themselves without land or money."

Yumsumkin left behind his wife Petinta, a sister of the late Chief Umapine, and a 15-year-old daughter, Josephine, who was attending the Catholic school on the reservation.

The chief's body was shipped back to Pendleton for burial.

North Powder murder blamed on insanity

A fractious marriage deteriorated to murder in March 1933 in North Powder when a woman hacked her husband to death with a hatchet, then tried to cover up the crime.

Warren W. May, 42, a farmer living five miles southwest of North Powder, was murdered sometime during the night of March 27, 1933. His wife, Rose May, 30, told police that she awakened around midnight and, finding her husband gone from their bed, went in search of him. She said she found his body just outside the front doorstep. May had been struck several times on the right and left sides of the head with a heavy object.

But investigating officers found some discrepancies with Mrs. May's story. Officers found a blood-soaked pillow covered in a clean pillowcase, and the blankets were soaked with blood. Two pillows had been washed the morning after the killing. And a hatchet with blood and hair on the blade and the handle was discovered secreted behind a cupboard. 

The Mays' two children, Lloyd, 7, and Juanita, 5, said they didn't waken during the night. They were being cared for by the Baker County juvenile judge.

According to neighbors, the Mays had a violent quarrel three weeks before Mr. May's death. He was shot in the left arm with a revolver, but conflicting stories of the shooting were offered to investigators. Mrs. May said her husband shot himself while cleaning the gun. Young Lloyd May said his father was shot while struggling over the gun with his mother. Warren May told a neighbor shortly after the shooting that he was shot accidentally by his wife, and that the argument was "all his fault."

Rose May was arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband, and arraigned on a first-degree murder charge. However, Rose May was judged insane by Baker County Judge Charles Baird, and was committed to the state mental hospital in Pendleton on March 30.

Worm association profitable for junior high entrepreneurs

An octet of junior high school entrepreneurs in Pendleton in November 1967 made some serious bank with the ickiest of businesses: worms.

In a room the size of a closet at Pendleton's John Murray Junior High School, eight students constituting the Round Up Worm Association kept busy with the main duties of their fledgling business on a blustery November day: acquiring, sorting, packaging and shipping night crawlers to a worm distributor in California. Larry Ables, Dennis Edgerly and Bruce Cable, along with five other students and adviser Bill Harris, thought up the business as a way to make money for school field trips.

Each Wednesday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the boys bought worms from other students and the junior high teachers and staff for a half cent each. The worms were packaged in boxes of 500 worms each, cushioned by a mixture of damp peat moss, sawdust and leaf mold. On Nov. 2, 1967, the Worm Association shipped 2,500 worms to their buyer.

Showing off their stock in trade on Nov. 3, 1967, are, from left, Larry Ables, Dennis Edgerly and Bruce Cable, members of the Round Up Worm Association. (EO file photo)

It was busy work. Harris said that the boys learned bookkeeping and how to apply other school subjects to their work. Edgerly drew the association's letterhead, and designed advertisements and posters for the organization. The group also placed an article in the school newspaper seeking worms, but warned, "Do not use electric prods to get the worms and get night crawlers only. Please bring the worms in multiples of ten." 

It could also be frustrating. One boy lost the bottom out of a box of worms he was carrying into the building, scattering worms up and down the stairs.

In addition to buying worms, the boys also foraged for their own. Bruce Cable's neighbor let him hunt for night crawlers in her yard. All you needed, he said, was a flashlight and a bucket, especially after a heavy rain. The worms crawl to the surface and are "thicker than blazes." He collected 500 worms in one night.

"You can get that many in one hour — if they're out good. You spot them with a flashlight, then turn off the light and grab them with your hands. I was getting three at a time," Cable said.

Ron Hathaway, a veteran worm raiser, made a tidy sum several years prior by selling night crawlers to local fishermen.

They didn't get many girls willing to help them in their endeavors, however — something none of the boys could understand.

Milton youth foils his own kidnapping scheme

A 20-year-old Milton man who attempted to extort money from his wealthy uncle in April 1909 foiled his own scheme when he lost his nerve and confessed that a kidnapping plot with himself as the victim was a complete hoax.

Sam A. Miller, president of the Milton nursery company and former mayor of Milton, received an unsigned letter declaring a mysterious "we" had kidnapped his nephew, Leonard A. Raup, and were holding him for $1,200 ransom. Miller was directed to take the ransom to a railroad track east of Milton at 11 p.m. on April 5, 1909, to a point where he would find a dim light. He was to deposit the money there and turn out the light, then return home to wait for his nephew's release before reporting the incident to police. Failure to comply with the instructions would result in the burning death of Raup and also the death of Miller's young daughter.

Miller immediately dispatched a copy of the letter to Umatilla County Sheriff Til Taylor, then withdrew the ransom money from his bank with every intention of complying with the kidnappers' demands. Sheriff Taylor and Deputy Bert Wilson drove to the scene of the ransom drop to investigate. They returned to Miller's house just before the kidnap victim appeared at 8:15 p.m.

Raup declared he left his boarding house April 3 and was on his way to town to buy tobacco when he was kidnapped by two Freewater men, who took him to a straw stack. He escaped, he said, while his kidnappers were drinking and playing cards.

But Raup's guilty conscience got the better of him. He came up with the kidnapping scheme himself, wrote the ransom letter and hid for two days in a deserted house on his grandfather's property. But a dust and wind storm the day of the ransom drop-off was too much for Raup's nerves, he confessed to a representative of the East Oregonian during an interview.

Raup said he had found himself in a bit of a financial difficulty, and came up with a scheme to get money from his uncle to square his accounts. He had planned to skip town if the ransom scheme failed. He denied any intention to hurt his cousin, and said he intended to make a full confession to his uncle the night of the ransom drop-off but manufactured his escape story when he found law enforcement was already involved.

Raup was arrested by Sheriff Taylor and brought to the jail in Pendleton to await action of the grand jury. He pled guilty to attempting to extort money from his uncle on April 15.

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.