Pendleton man honored for burning car rescue

A Pendleton man received an award for heroism in June 1967 after he saved a man from a burning car the previous November.

Kirk Leuhrs of Pendleton was working for Boeing Co. in Seattle in November of 1966 and was driving to work when he came upon a traffic accident that left one car in flames. No one had attempted to rescue the driver of the burning car, which had been burning for two minutes by the time Leuhrs pulled over.

Leuhrs tore open the door of the small sedan and found the driver, John Pitcher, also a Boeing employee, wedged between the two front seats, with his head in the back seat and his legs in the front. His clothes were on fire.

The flames from the burning car singed Leuhrs' face and beard, and he shouted for help to extricate the man from the car. After removing Pitcher from the vehicle, Leuhrs laid him on the ground and patted out the flames on his clothes. While checking Pitcher for broken ribs and other injuries, and preparing to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Pitcher began breathing on his own and the color returned to his face.

Leuhrs covered Pitcher with a blanket against shock and then continued on his way to work.

The rescue wasn't covered by the media, and Pitcher recovered from the accident. But a mention of the event was written up in Boeing's shop newsletter. Leuhrs was given a letter of commendation by the company.

After Leuhrs moved to Pendleton he was hired by the Hartford Insurance Group. The company awarded him the Hartford Heroism Award and an engraved plaque for his efforts to save his fellow employee.

Kirk Leuhrs of Pendleton, center, is awarded the Hartford Heroism Award by Bud Mabry of Pendleton, left, and Robert G. Hanks, Spokane, of the Hartford Insurance Group in June 1967.

Pendleton folks weigh in on 'ape-men of the Cascades'

A group of miners working in the Spirit Lake region of Washington's Cascade Mountains in July of 1924 told a story of giant seven-foot hairy men who drove them from their cabin with a bombardment of huge rocks. Pendleton-area folks took to the newspaper to weigh in on the veracity of their claims.

Joseph A. Dupuis was the first to have a theory on the "ape-men," as described by the miners. The Dupuis family arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1859 via wagon train, and he said Vancouver, Washington, was a mighty tough town in those days. Dupuis described one particular man, a Native American more than six feet tall, with one eye, who was run out of town with his wife after several rounds of drinking, fighting and landing in jail. "He was about as mad an Indian as I ever saw when he found out that he would have to get out and stay out. I had not thought of Ki Ki for years until I read in the newspapers about the report of the mountain devils near Spirit Lake. I should not be surprised if these giants prove to be descendants. ..."

A Clallam tribal member living in the Vancouver area suggested that the marauders could be members of a tribe known as the Seeahitk, last known among his tribe in 1909 and believed to be extinct. Jorg Totsgi said the Seeahitk made their home in the heart of the wilderness on Vancouver Island and in the Olympics. "The Seeahtiks are seven to eight feet tall with hairy bodies, like bears. They are great hypnotists and also have a gift of ventriloquism, throwing their voices at great distances."

Two forest rangers in the area of the alleged bombardment called the story a hoax, saying they found nothing to substantiate the miners' claims. The purported footprints, they said, were fabricated, and they demonstrated their possible manufacture with the knuckles and palm of one hand. The monstrous rocks thrown by the "ape-men" were in evidence at the cabin, but could have been placed there by the miners themselves, the rangers claimed. They also reported that the same group of miners had been forging into the wilderness and bringing back similar stories for the previous five years.

Major Lee Moorehouse, a Pendleton fixture and an expert on Indian lore and legend, called the whole story a product of the miners' imaginations. "The mountains and the forests are solemn places, and their vast spaces and deep solitude often cause tricks to be played on the minds of those who remain a long time in them. It is my idea that such will be found to be the case in this apeman story," Moorehouse said.

"I recall the campaign of 1879 against the Sheepeaters. That was on the Salmon River in Idaho in the Seven Devils country. Mr. Whirlwind, an Indian doctor, and a man of more than average intelligence, was one of our scouts in that campaign, and he swore that he saw dwarf Indians on some of his excursions. They were not more than three feet tall, he said, and he admitted that he never was able to get very near them, but he held onto the story that he had seen them with his own eyes."

The report of pygmy Indians was never proven. Later reports said that the sightings were the result of a trick Mr. Whirlwind's imagination played on him.

Retired rancher has narrow escape in Yukon Territory

A Morrow County mainstay avoided being trapped in the wilds of Alaska in June of 1969 with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of help.

Retired Lexington-area rancher Orville Cutsforth had a narrow escape in the Yukon Territory of Alaska the second week of June in 1969 as he was ferrying a plane to his large gold fields at Kotzebue. He and Frank Baldwin, the owner of the plane and a passenger in the small craft, had just flown over a 100-mile-long lake full of floating ice when the motor of the plane conked out.

"That's when the good luck started," Cutsforth said in an interview with the East Oregonian. He was faced with a sizable mountain, but just managed to get over it, searching for the Alaskan Highway on the other side. The highway was there, and fortunately for the pair a 7,700-foot Army emergency landing strip also was in sight.

"Someone was really looking after us on that trip," Cutsforth said, shaking his head.

Cutsforth landed without incident and rolled up to a helicopter parked on the field. The crew of men there had leather that Cutsforth used to make a new gasket for the plane's motor, and tools to complete the job.

The crew was there only because their Native guide was late in appearing. Just as Cutsforth completed his repair job and got the plane's motor started, the guide arrived and within minutes the crew had left the airstrip. "Had anything been timed differently we would have been in that desolate area by ourselves," Cutsforth said.

Cutsforth and Baldwin followed the Alcan Highway the remaining 74 miles to Whitehorse, where they discovered a search party had been organized to look for them. Cutsforth took a commercial plane to return to Heppner, leaving the disabled plane in Alaska. The motor of the plane was sent to the Lexington airport for repair. Baldwin took a commercial flight to Kotzebue and rented a plane to use until his was fixed.