Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at the Des Chutes Historical Museum.
100 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
March 2, 1913
Boys clubs
The Knights of the Triangle, composed of boys ranging in age from 12 to 20 years, has been formed in one of the Central Oregon towns. No matter by what name these organizations of boys are known, they should be encouraged by the older people in the small towns of our state.
For one thing, these clubs tend to tie the boys to their home towns, and discourage their going away to seek their fortunes, as they say, in strange and distant places. If these bands of young men can include in their aims something to interest their members in land development and the growing of crops or livestock suited to the climate and soil, some communities will soon be leading the less progressive ones to better and more substantial things.
Local commercial bodies can well afford to go out of their way to help such unions of their town youth and assist them with suggestions and other ways more tangible. Anything that will keep the young men at home, and close to the land, is quite worthwhile not only in Central Oregon, but in every other section.
Outlook on irrigation improvements bright
Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe Howard returned to their home at Deschutes last week, after a two month Eastern trip. Sailing from San Francisco, they touched at Central American points of interest and were on the Isthmus of Panama for a number of days and thence proceeded to New York and Columbus, Ohio where Mr. Howard had business with the Eastern capitalists interested in the Central Oregon Irrigation Company of which he is manager.
“Satisfactory arrangements for financing local irrigation improvements were made," said Mr. Howard on Saturday. “I believe that we shall be able to accomplish a great deal, and I also am confident that this will prove the best season, from all standpoints, that we and the settlers have yet had. Already an excellent sale for lands is developing and with new acreage to be reclaimed the prospects are excellent."
While the exact plans for development work were not yet matured, they probably will be ready for announcement within a couple of weeks.
75 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
March 2, 1938
Lone survivor of women’s temperance group
On the day before Christmas, 1873, 70 women met in a church in Hillsboro. They read the 123rd Psalm and sang hymns.
Then they did something extremely unusual for women of their day — they launched a movement.
This was the Women’s Temperance Crusade, reorganized ten years later by Frances Willard to become the Women’s Christian Temperance Union which has spread all over the world.
Today, more than 65 years after the little meeting in the Hillsboro church, only one of the original 70 founders is still alive.
She is Mrs. Jenny Duffy, 82 years old, who still lives in Hillsboro. Mrs. Duffy is in good health, does some traveling, and still is intensely interested in current affairs and particularly in the temperance movement.
Two other Hillsboro women, Mrs. Elizabeth Leslie and Mrs. Elizabeth Harsha, who attended the original meeting, are still alive. They were just children, however, when the meeting was held.
The W.C.T.U. is still strong in Hillsboro with 115 members. One of its leaders, Miss Mary Cowman, feels certain that the nation one day will have absolute prohibition again.
“The liquor traffic cannot be controlled," she says, “it must be prohibited."
Skyliners add slalom to Sunday tournament events
An extra event, a mass slalom race for junior skiers, was added today to the Skyliners tournament program for Sunday afternoon. The race will preceed the class A and class B ski jumping on Skyline hill, in which several former northwest champions will compete among the leading ski jumpers of the Pacific Northwest.
The junior slalom race, in which about 25 of the best young skiers of Bend will come down the slalom course in a group, is scheduled for 1 p.m. Forty minutes later, the ceremonies dedicating the big ski jump, in use for the first time this weekend, will begin and at 2 p.m. the jumping contest will start.
Ole Tverdahl sets mark on skyline hill
Ole Tverdahl, of Seattle, won the Skyliners major awards in the first ski tournament on the new jump. He placed first in the class A ski jump and also won the special award for the best single jump of the day, 211 feet.
Second went to Hermod Baake of Leavenworth Ski Club and third to Helge Sather, also of Leavenworth. Lief Flack of Seattle placed fourth, Hjalmar Hvam of the Cascade Ski Club fifth and Olaf Skjersaa of the Skyliners sixth.
50 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
March 2, 1963
Winter ski carnival gets under way on Friday
“It’s the largest intercollegiate winter carnival held in America!"
That’s the word from Harvey LaZelle, who is handling publicity as Portland State’s ’63 spectacle opens Friday on the snowy slopes of Bachelor Butte and carries through the weekend with a jam-packed schedule of activities.
Members of the Willamette University team rolled into Bend this morning and registered at the Pilot Butte Inn. Teams from more than 25 colleges and universities are shortly to follow. An estimated 2,000 students from schools as distant as California and British Columbia are expected during the big weekend.
The Bend Chamber of Commerce has asked all local merchants and sales people to wear an item of ski clothing on Friday and Saturday, as a local tie-in with the carnival.
The registration for a free $100 gift certificate for ski wear or ski equipment has been set up in various merchants’ stores.
A winner will be chosen from among all college students during the Four Freshmen concert Saturday night at the Bend Senior High School auditorium.
Records broken in highly successful ski carnival
Records were piling up all over the place after the Seventh Annual Intercollegiate Winter Carnival in Bend last weekend — most successful in the history of the Portland State College-sponsored event.
With three days of gorgeous ski weather, carnival attendance records were estimated at upward of 3,000. But that was just the beginning.
Bachelor Butte enjoyed its biggest weekend in history with an estimated 10,204 flocking to the ski area Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday’s attendance of 4,515 broke the previous one-day record of 3,100 set Dec. 31, 1962.
Yet, despite the huge crowds, ski accidents were held to a minimum and Chief of Police Emil Moen praised the young ski enthusiasts for their outstanding behavior.
In fact, Moen is so happy over the conspicuous lack of trouble by visiting students that he intends to write a letter of gratitude to Portland State College.
25 YEARS AGO
For the week ending
March 2, 1988
It’s the water — and a lot more
Once it was just another desert junkyard, a few weathered shacks surrounded by the rusting remains of a couple dozen wrecked cars.
Steve Scott first showed up at the 480-acre ranch in the High Desert near Summer Lake in the summer of 1985. He saw something in the run-down place that most of us would have missed amid the wreckage of the abandoned ranch operation.
It was the water.
Cool artesian water gushed out of a well in a steady flow, creating a small desert lake and a welcome patch of green in the otherwise barren desert.
Scott, a Bend realtor and an avid outdoorsman, looked past the cluttered ranch grounds and saw only the potential of the lake. What he envisioned was a place where rainbow trout would gorge themselves on insects, and ducks and geese would come to nest and rest on their annual flights.
Scott and a partner purchased the ranch in August 1985, marking the beginning of a costly and time-consuming effort to make the ranch into the fish and wildlife haven that Scott believed was possible,
Scott, who has since bought out his partner, immediately began cleaning up the place. He burned the dilapidated buildings and hauled off the cars and other garbage around the ranch. Now a double-wide mobile home is the only building on the entire ranch.
Scott also drilled a second artesian well and the two wells together produce about 2 million gallons per day. There now are two lakes on the property, which is not far from Ana Reservoir, a desert impoundment fed by artesian springs.
He also purchased three thousand rainbow trout and stocked his two lakes, which held only about 50 fish when he started work on the project.
Today, after more than 21⁄2 years of work, the ranch is close to becoming the ideal place to grow trophy trout and provide nesting areas for waterfowl that Scott envisioned when he first walked on the ranch.
