100 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Dec. 8, 1912
Miller and A.O. Hunter go East to Chicago
Kempster B. Miller, general manager of the Bend Water, Light & Power Co. and A.O. Hunter left this morning for Chicago.
Mr. Hunter, who came in with Mr. Miller last week, expects to be in Ohio for several months. To him is due the credit of interesting Mr. Miller and his associates in their recent purchase of the local power, water and lighting plants and appurtenant power properties, he having spent the last six months working on the proposition. While he has nothing to say just now, it is understood that the purpose of his eastern visit concerns another deal of importance to the town.
“I am glad to say this, however," stated Mr. Hunter, in discussing general conditions, “Bend never looked better to me. The outlook all over the country is excellent. Prosperity is sure. Locally, affairs are in splendid shape. Another very important group of men has been added to the already powerful backing of the town, and all interests are pulling together splendidly. It is my firm belief that the next ten months will see some remarkable developments in Bend."
Before leaving, Mr. Miller stated that the machinery has been ordered for the larger power plant that is to be installed in the new building as soon as it is completed.
As stated last week, the initial cost of the poser plant unit that is to be installed immediately is $40,000, this in addition to the plant already operating.
During the week a boom has been placed at the lower end of the pond above the dam to keep floating ice from getting into the flume and damaging the water wheels.
The Bend Water, Light & Power Co. hereafter will have its office in the building on the south end of Wall Street formerly occupied partly by the library, where it has had a storeroom for some time. Elmer Ward is to be the office man for the new management.
No fire risk in Bend timber
Three timber fires in all of Crook County last season, with a total loss of about $75, is the remarkable record for the district, says Clyde McKay, deputy state fire warden.
“There you have the big reason why the Deschutes pine belt offers the safest timber investment in America," said Mr. McKay. “There is absolutely no danger of fire loss, incidentally, one can get anywhere in the timber quickly, by auto or rig, in case small fires start."
Mr. McKay, who is also vice president of The Bend Company, and local representative of the Mueller timber interests, is very optimistic concerning the local timber and lumber outlook.
75 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Dec. 8, 1937
Bandits find Westerners too tough for train robbing
Two bold young men from the east who outfitted themselves with six shooters, ten gallon hats and cowboy boots and tried to revive the obsolete business of robbing a train, were held today for a taste of western justice.
They probably will be charged with homicidal robbery because they killed a railroad man in the scuffle after they had gone through one coach relieving 20 passengers of watches, rings and wallets.
They were a badly beaten pair of outlaws when the train stopped yesterday morning to deliver them to the sheriff. The passengers had pounded them unmercifully and tied them down to seats.
Henry Lorenz is 22 and Harry Dwyer, 27. Lorenz came west from Brooklyn where he worked. Dwyer was a native of Massachusetts.
They had been out several days scouting to see what the wild west had to provide, and a train robbery seemed about as good a stunt as it ever was when the Dalton boys and Billy the Kid got rich and notorious along these trails.
“We thought it would be an easy job and we could just stop the train, drop off in the desert and never get caught," they said.
They were captured by the simplest expedient, a trick that was the first thing any of the old master train robbers would have watched for — a passenger stuck out his foot in the aisle and tripped one of them.
Trainmen and passengers were on top of him in an instant. The other robber turned to see what caused the noise, and he was grabbed. His gun went off and the bullet killed W.L. Smith, who was en route west to see his sick wife. Smith was a Rock Island railway man but he had a trainman’s aversion for robbers on any line, and he was one of the first men to go after the robber who turned his head.
It was at Deming, N.M., that the two bad men bought their cowboy regalia. They worked for a carnival there for a few days, then went to El Paso. There they boarded the train. The passengers marked them at once for tenderfeet.
One of them confronted the conductor and said “This is a holdup." The other robber was waving a gun and shouting threats and commands. One of them fired a shot to prove that it was a real holdup and to rouse the sleeping passengers so they could get their wallets and watches ready.
With their loot tied in a bundle, one of them ordered the brakeman to stop the train and then the robber was tripped and the gun was fired and the passengers and trainmen pounded them both.
The two men, who are now experts on how not to rob a train, signed written confessions today, the sheriff said.
50 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Dec. 8, 1962
27 Bombers now have been pulled out by Russians
The Defense Department announced today that 27 IL28 bombers now have been pulled out of Cuba by the Russians.
A Soviet ship was underway today from the port of Mariel with 15 of the subsonic jet bombers on board.
The Defense Department said there were “more than 30" of the bombers on the island at the time of the Cuban crisis.
(Other U.S. sources said, however, that Russia has informed the U.S. that it had put 42 of the jet bombers in Cuba and that they would be removed. These sources also had talked previously in terms of “more than 30" bombers.)
U.S. officials said that there were still “several thousand" Russians in Cuba, and that the Cubans still had “some MIG15 and MIG21 fighter planes capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
But these officials said there was no evidence the Russians were operating as an organized separate military unit, or that there are nuclear weapons in Cuba. They said the Russians were wearing T-shirts or sports shirts and were with Cuban antiaircraft and ground defense units. About 400 Russians were aboard the ships which removed Soviet missiles from Cuba.
The Soviets have indicated that they will demand at this point that President Kennedy give the formal pledge against any invasion.
Guevara admits plans for rocket strikes at U.S.
Ernesto (Che) Guevara International Communism’s “Man in Havana" was disclosed today to have told a Communist reporter that Fidel Castro had planned nuclear attacks of key U.S. cities, including New York.
In an exclusive interview with the European Communist correspondent in Havana, Guevara said “if the rockets had remained we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York, in our defense against aggression.
In one statement suppressed by the Communist press, Guevara said international communism’s “most effective form of help" in Latin America would be in “the armed struggle already taking place in a number of Latin American countries where the people are in action to overthrow American imperialism."
25 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Dec. 8, 1987
Robberson: It’s who you are that counts
Gordon Robberson has been in the news lately not for who he is, but more for who he knows — new Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci is his former brother-in-law and longtime friend.
But that’s not really fair to Robberson who last week celebrated his 30th anniversary at the helm of Robberson Ford of Bend. In that capacity he has become one of the most notable Ford dealers in Oregon, the Northwest and the nation.
Robberson, known to his friends as Gordy, has served four, two-year terms on the Ford Dealers’ Council, an elected body of 20 dealers who serve as a sounding board between dealers and the parent company. He also is the current president of the Oregon Automobile Dealers Association and has served four times on the Northwest Ford Dealers Advertising Committee. He could also joke with the late Henry Ford II about haircuts and paunches.
“I feel that my community whether it’s Bend or the auto business, has given a great deal to me and I owe it back," said Robberson who’s also a former President of the Bend Chamber of Commerce and member of the St. Charles Medical Center board of trustees.
His old dealership was located in the present Masterson-St. Clair Hardware building downtown. There was no sales lot. Cars were ferried back and forth from the second floor on an elevator.
“The first three years, 13 franchise dealers did close up for one reason or another," Robberson said, recalling that when he arrived there were three Chrysler-Plymouth dealers, a Studebaker dealer and another who sold a tiny French car called the Izeta.
“The town, the economy itself was really negative," Robberson remembered. “It was a logging town and a logging town only."
Robberson later moved his dealership to South Third Street across from the present Bob Thomas location, and then to his present location north of Payless in 1971. He called that as a “scary move."
“It was all solid rock and old houses that the Forest Service had brought in," said Robberson, who has witnessed the evolution of the auto and its products over the years. “It took a lot of imagination to envision a dealership here."
Robberson is gradually passing the reins onto his son, Jeff, who left the trucking industry a year ago to join his father’s business, and his sales manager, Tom Collier. But it will be a few more years before he even thinks about retirement.
“I don’t want to quit," he said. “This is a fun job. I still work six days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day and I enjoy it."
