Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at the Des Chutes Historical Museum.
100 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Feb. 9, 1913
Another fire visits town
Property worth nearly $20,000 was destroyed and six places of business were wiped out by fire on the west side of Bond Street early last Friday morning. Three frame buildings were burned. All of them had been erected since the fire of Oct. 12, 1911, which swept over the same site and did $10,000 damage.
The buildings burned last week were owned by Myers & Wilkey, G.W. Lorimer of Piqua, Ohio, and Carmody Bros.
The places of business suffering as a result of the fire are as follows: Myers & Wilkey, saloon; Frank Dalton, saloon; E.T. Butts, pool room and bowling alley; Carmody Bros., pool, billiards and confectionery; R.D. George, barber shop and Lane Thomas, restaurant.
The origin of the fire is not known. It was discovered shortly after 4 a.m. and had gained considerable headway before the firefighters could get to the scene. A large amount of goods, including stocks of whiskey and wines, was carried out of the doomed buildings and saved. As has been the case on numerous other occasions, there was, fortunately, an absence of wind, and this made it possible to save the adjoining buildings. Wenandy’s livery stable received a scorching, and being in danger, all livestock and vehicles were got out to a place of safety. The small building on the alley in the rear of the burned structures was saved with difficulty.
At one time it was feared that the fire would spread to the new First National Bank building and give it a scorching.
The owners of the burned buildings will not put up frame structures again, they declare. Myers & Wilkey, who own the lot on which the building was, will probably rebuild of brick or stone as soon as the insurance is adjusted. Carmody Bros. have reopened the confectionery part of their business in the Baird building which they occupied previous to erecting their own building on leased ground. They are as yet undecided whether they will rebuild.
Myers & Wilkey and Dalton have reopened their bars in shacks on the alley in the rear of where they formerly were located. R.D. George is back at his old stand on Oregon Street, having saved part of his barber shop equipment.
John Steidl is back
“I’ve seen a hundred cities since I left Bend and not one of them looks half so good to me as this little old burg."
That was the way John Steidl talked when he struck town Sunday night after a five weeks absence, during which he had swung around through the Southwest, via Hot Springs, Ark., to his old Minnesota homes in Bemidji and Alexander. Mr. Steidl says that this spring will see a record bunch of immigrants come to Oregon, and that everywhere he went he found that people know about and are interested in this country.
75 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Feb. 9, 1938
Hitler tightens grip on Germany
A tightening of Nazi control in the economic field may follow the drastic shake-up in the army, air force, foreign office and diplomatic service, it was predicted in some quarters today.
Strong hints that the process of “amalgamation of the army and Nazi party" had not been completed, and that there would be further moves were thrown out by Nazi party newspapers.
It was announced officially today that seven army and six air force generals would retire Feb. 28. It was admitted semi-officially that the retirements were based on “differences of opinion."
In full control of the entire fighting forces as chief of national defense, with the war minister and the army commander in chief eliminated, with a switch in foreign ministers and the recall of three key ambassadors, Hitler had effected what some foreign diplomatic quarters called “a bloodless June 30." But Nazis, while admitting that the shakeup had an atmosphere of political tension, denied stoutly that there was anything at all to suggest in it a bloodless version of the drastic purge of June 30, 1934.
Japanese to refuse data on navy plan
A foreign spokesman said today that “perhaps" Japan will answer within the time set in the request of the United States, Great Britain and France, for specific information on Japan’s naval building programs.
But it was intimated in reliable quarters that even if an answer were sent by Feb. 20, as requested, the government would be likely to say it could not reveal its navy building program.
“There is no change in Japan’s naval policy announced at the time of the London conference," said Foreign Minister Koki Hirota. This policy was that Japan must have equality of strength in principle.
There seemed to be some tendency to answer the note and to allay as far as was possible the suspicion that Japan is engaged in a program of super-ship building, but without disclosing information which the navy believes it must keep secret in the national interest.
The foreign office spokesman in his “perhaps" statement today, repeated denials that Japan was planning 43,000-ton battleships.
Wagner takes hand in lynching debate
Robert F. Wagner, D., N.Y., said in the senate today that the constitution presents no obstacles to the anti-lynching bill but in fact “makes it the implied duty of the federal government to take reasonable steps" to stop lynchings.
The co-author of the bill, which is threatened by filibuster, presented the first argument in defense of the legislation, since debate started four weeks ago. Senator William E. Borah, R., Idaho, joining with southern senators, had described it as an unconstitutional invasion of states’ rights.
50 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Feb. 9, 1963
Team completes initial study of Derrick Cave
A North American Aviation Inc. geology team headed by Dr. Jack Green, research geologist, Sunday completed a week’s preliminary study of Derrick Cave, in the Fort Rock country.
This was part of a scientific investigation aimed toward basing men on the moon.
Heavy snows, followed by rains and soggy runoff, hampered surface experiments with sensitive magnetometers and gravimeters. A primary mission for North America’s space science laboratory is the development of instrumentation capable of locating lava tubes beneath the moon’s surface.
However, it is noted, the “pure research" being conducted is a calculated risk: Not until the composition of the moon is definitely determined will any practical application be possible.
Some scientists contend that the craters on the moon were caused by meteor contact — not by volcanic explosions.
If preliminary studies of the moon determine that the craters are of meteoric origin, the lava tube investigations will be of no value.
Dr. Green is a member of a school that believes that the pock-marked surface of the moon is due to volcanic eruptions or a combination of meteor impact and volcanism.
Caves on a volcanic lunar surface would be used for shelter by astronauts who will attempt lunar landings.
Dr. Green is one of the top authorities on lunar geology, and teaches a seminar course at UCLA dealing with that subject. He has been invited to speak at a scientific symposium later this year in Russia.
Providing funds are available, Dr. Green and his staff will return to Central Oregon in the spring to continue their lava tube studies.
Free throw title won by McMeen boy
Bend High basketball coaches are casting covetous eyes on 10-year-old Daryl McMeen, a fifth-grader at Kenwood who dropped in 42 of 50 free throws to win the Bend area free throw championship at Bend High Saturday.
Daryl, coached by Jack Ensworth, Kenwood, bested Bob Douglas, 13, an eighth-grader at St. Francis, who dropped in 38 of 50 free throws.
Six finalists from Bend and Redmond competed. The annual contest was conducted by Jack Lutz and Richard L. Geiser.
Daryl will advance to the state finals, to be held in OSU’s Gill Coliseum at Corvallis this Saturday.
Big crowd on hand for district meet
Presentation of distinguished service awards and a salute to the conservation man of the year highlighted the annual meeting and dinner of the Midstate Soil Conservation District here Wednesday night, at the Pine Forest Grange Hall. 210 persons were present.
Omar Moffitt, operator of a large stock ranch in the Brothers country east of Bend, was honored as the conservation man of the year for his rotation deferred grazing accomplishments, through which he has increased the carrying capacity of his extensive range some 22 percent. This is the first time that the “man of the year" award had been given to a rancher, other than a dairyman.
25 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
Feb. 9, 1988
Winter harvest
Phil Kerfoot is sweating in the subzero air.
He’s slicing his 36-inch chainsaw blade into the base of a 120-foot-tall, 40-inch diameter ponderosa pine, making the cuts that will bring the 20,000-pound tree whooshing and crackling to the ground.
It’s so cold in the Metolius River basin on this February morning that Kerfoot’s breath freezes up amid the coarse hairs of his red moustache, forming little crystals that glitter in the sunlight streaming through the trees.
He doesn’t notice. He’s going to set this tree down exactly where he planned it.
“It’s like cutting an ice cube, I guess," Kerfoot says. “The wood seems to chip out instead of coming out in shavings."
The chill air up here seems to magnify sounds: the siren-like whine of Kerfoot’s chain saw, his cry of “Heads up!" and the pistol crack popping of splitting wood as the tree sways for a long moment, then falls to earth in an explosion of snow and limbs.
When the cloud of twinkling ice crystals and pine needles has settled and the tree stretches in a tangled green mass across the frosted forest floor, Kerfoot sees that the impact of brittle tree on frozen ground has split the massive log in half like a fallen icicle.
He rests his chain saw on the stump a while, turning his Marlboro Man face into the light of the morning sun.
“You stay warm if you stay working," Kerfoot says, but it’s tough getting out of the pickup in the morning."
“The morning" means dawn to Kerfoot and the two other loggers in Phil Peterson’s Petco Logging Co., but tough as it may be to leave their warm pickups, few subzero temperatures or snow storms will keep them out of the woods.
A thaw will.
Peterson, who stands like an earthen wall in his insulated brown coveralls, shut down this operation for a day and a half two weeks ago when rising temperatures softened the ground beneath the wheels of the company’s 63,000-pound loader and 32,000-pound log skidder.
“Whenever we start leaving any impression in the ground, we just shut down," Peterson says. When we leave here this winter, you won’t even know we were here except for a few logs.
That’s the point of being out here when it’s this cold. It’s the ideal time to log sensitive scenic areas. The frozen ground resists the churning tires of heavy equipment moving huge logs.
Logging from November thorough February has its complications too. Snow must be plowed from roads — at the logging company’s expense. Equipment is even more finicky than it is in warmer weather. Fuel lines freeze. To make repairs, loggers must sometimes crawl under their equipment, lie on the hard snowy ground and numb their fingers on frosty metal parts.
“I’ve seen it when you could have ice skated on the road out to some of these logging sites," says Ray Hennings, the U.S. Forest Service timber sale administrator on the Sisters Ranger District.
