JACK EVANS

Union County resident for 47 years AN ORAL HISTORY

Interviews in January, 1998 and February, March, and September, 2003 at his home in La Grande OR

Interviewers: Jerry Gildemeister and Tom Madden

UNION COUNTY, HISTORY PROJECT Affi liate of the Oregon Historical Society

2004 (revised from 2003) UNION COUNTY, OREGON HISTORY PROJECT An Affi liate of the Oregon Historical Society

A non-profi t, tax-exempt corporation formed in 2002

In collaboration with University Cove Improvement Club History Committee Elgin Museum & Historical Society Union Museum Society

Purposes To record & publish oral histories of long-time Union County residents & To create community encyclopedia

Board of Representatives Alice Alexander, Cove Merle Miller, La Grande & Union Gerda Brownton, La Grande Shirley Peters, Elgin Dorothy Swart Fleshman, La Grande Jerry Peters, Cove & Union John Turner, La Grande John VanSchoonhoven, Cove

Eugene Smith, Executive Director Jennie Tucker, Executive Assistant

Cooperating Faculty, EOU Robert Davis, English & Cornerstone Program

Contributors Union County Commissionersʼ Transient Tax Discretionary Fund Frontier Motors Meyer Memorial Trust The Observer First Bank Wildhorse Foundation Charles & Joyce Coate Dennis Cross Florence Davidson Peggy Delaney Betty Drummond Helen & Pat Fitzgerald George & Dorothy Swart Fleshman Doris Foster Clayton Fox Camille & William Hawkins Kevin Loveland Thelma & Emery Oliver Marj Parker Helen & Elmer Perry Anita & Roby Pipes Retired Boise Cascade Employees Lyle Sanderson Jennie Tucker Bernice & Gary Webster Gerald Young

Currently Active Volunteers Gerda Brownton Dorothy Swart Fleshman Tom Madden Carol Summer John Turner Patty Turner Arlene Young

For a list of people whose interviews are available as edited transcripts, call 541-975-1694 or write P.. Box 2841, La Grande OR 97850 or -mail [email protected]

copies of transcripts are $4.00 each + shipping & handling Preface

Much of the history of a place is stored in the memories of people who have lived there. Their stories may be told to family members, but, unless someone makes a special effort to record these stories, they become lost to future generations.

Each of the historical societies in Union County, Oregon has begun to make that effort. Tape recordings exist in several locations, some of them transcribed in written form, oth- ers not. A more ambitious and thorough effort seemed necessary so that more of the oral history of Union County could be captured and preserved.

The Union County, Oregon History Project, begun in 2002, is making that more ambitious effort. One of its principal purposes is to collect as many oral histories of older Union County residents as possible and to make them available in both taped and written form. This edited transcript is part of the series of oral histories to be produced by that project.

About the Interviews and This Edited Version

The interviews with Jack Evans took place at his home in La Grande. At age 75, Jack showed his customary quickness of mind and physical vigor.

The fi rst interviewer was Jerry Gildemeister, who was seeking information relevant to the Grande Ronde watershed. Tom Madden, a volunteer with the Union County, Oregon History Project, was the second interviewer. Jerry completed a one-hour interview in January, 1998, and Tom did one-hour interviews on February 12 and 29, March 18, and September 22, 2003.

Heather Pillingʼs full transcription (available for research purposes) presents the literal contents of the interview. The edited version presented here differs from the literal tran- scription in the following characteristics:

- reorganization of content

- deletion of some extraneous comments

- omission of false sentence starts and other normal speech fi llers that detract from readability

- normalization of pronunciation and grammar in conformity with standards of written English.

JE designates Jack EvansʼsEvansʼs words, the interviewersʼ.

CONTENTS

Early Interest in History 1 Native American Presence in Union County 2 Beginnings of La Grande: and Old Town 5 Coming of the Transcontinental Railroad 7 New Town, Wooden Buildings, and Fires 8 An Early Architect 9 The Slater Building 11 Filling in between Old and New and Street Naming 13 Other Old Houses in La Grande, including the Evansʼs 14 Architectural Styles 16 Bohnenkamp House: “The Castle” 18 Stange House 19 Building Materials 20 Early Newspapers in Union County 21 E.. McComas, An Interesting Man 22 The Observer and other Small Newspapers 23 La Grande Drugstores 24 La Grandeʼs Hospitals 26 An Old Ledger 27 Passenger Train Service 29 Contrasts in Travel Time for Emigrants 30 Other Branch Railroad Lines in Union County 31 Lee Johnsonʼs Beliefs about History 33 La Grandeʼs Libraries 33 Geographic Changes in the 34 Appendix: Partial Bibliography of Jack Evansʼs Publications 41 Index 43

Early Interest in History climate.” He had a cousin who had died of tuberculosis. So my parents I: You have a lifelong interest in history, drove out here, not by the Oregon and youʼre a professional historian Trail route but by the southern and writer. When did you fi rst become route through New Mexico and Ariz- interested in history? ona and up through California. My mother had two brothers in Los Ange- JE: I think this interest is probably born les. with you. As far back as I can remem- ber, I wanted to know where a particu- They came to La Grande, and in 1922- lar old road went, or, if there were 23 Bowman-Hicks bought the mill in older people, Iʼd ask them about what Wallowa, which at that time belonged it was like when they were young. to the Nibley-Mimnaugh Lumber They were always amazed that a little Company. The mill had been estab- kid would want to know these things. lished in 1907 by Charles Nibley, who But I learned a lot about the area was associated with David Eccles of around Wallowa [in Wallowa County]. the Oregon Lumber Company and the Some of those people could remember sugar company in La Grande. (The when the town was started. People Mormons had a number of commercial who found my interest unusual were and industrial operations in this part of glad to tell me whatever they knew the country.) My parents moved to and I did remember quite a lot of it. Wallowa and I was born there.

I: Were you originally from Wallowa? I: Was Wallowa established in the 1880s? JE: Yes. I was born there. Iʼm not de- scended from pioneers to this region, JE: 1887, I think, was when the town was though. My parents came out from established by the Island City Mercan- Kansas City the fall of 1922. The tile and Milling Company (ICM&) Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company of Their practice was to buy up attractive Kansas City had bought a mill in Ore- land, lay it out as a town, build the gon, and the person who was going to general store, and then sell the lots be its district manager, .. Ashby, to make money. After the store had was a depositor in the bank where my been subsidized for awhile and was father worked in Dodson, which on its own feet, whoever was operat- is a suburb of Kansas City. He told ing it bought it. ICM &M never ended my dad heʼd like for him to come out up really owning anything; they just and work for them. My dad needed to sort of transferred it and created the leave the Kansas City area because town in the process. They built fl our in World War I he didnʼt get into the mills and general stores. The Wallowa service because he nearly died from fl our mill was built in 1894. Enterprise Spanish fl u. It left him with pleurisy [in Wallowa County] was started the and other problems. His doctor had same way by ICM &Mʼs acquiring said, “Youʼd better get out of this the land, laying out a square for a court

1 house, and building the big store and By the time the white emigrants came fl our mill. Enterprise grew into a through, the Cayuse were not the only thriving little town and remains the people who used it, though they spent county seat. their summers here gathering food for winter. The other confederated tribes— Native American Presence the Walla Wallas and the Umatillas to in Union County some extent—were here, and so were the , maybe not as plenti- I: Since we want to fi nd out about Union fully as in some areas, but they were County history, would you discuss the here. The Cayuse raised a lot of horses, Native American population in the and this valley was wonderful pasture Grande Ronde Valley? for horses.

JE: As far as we know, the fi rst tribe to In the1860s some fellow needed to claim dominance over this area was buy horses. I think he was working on the Snakes, who were generally con- the Mullan Trail that they built over sidered dangerous—people best avoid- into Montana about that time. He came ed. This was in the early part of the here to get horses and said their horses 19th century. Peter Skene Ogdenʼs were wonderful and that the Indians journals are my source for this history. were pretty sharp traders. He got some good ones that he took with him. The fur traders and trappers had fur brigades in the 1830s and ʻ40s that When David Douglas was traveling went through here frequently. I donʼt through the West, doing his nature think they had any trouble with any- study around 1818 or ʻ20, he stopped one. There had been a treaty between at the old Fort Walla Walla near the the various tribes, that is, the Nez mouth of the Walla Walla River. Perce, with a couple of trading areas (Whatever is left of it, which might down around Weiser [Idaho] and the be foundations, is under water now.) Cayuse, who were closely related to Douglas was quite an explorer of the Nez Perce. The Cayuse tribe had everything and wandered all over arranged with the Snakes to occupy the countryside. The factor [i.e., the this valley, though I donʼt know what commercial agent] at the Hudsonʼs the terms of the agreement were; Bay Company post gave him a com- Ogden didnʼt mention that. He said panion or two to go along. One was theyʼd reached an agreement whereby an Indian who could not speak Eng- the Cayuse would be controlling the lish and one was the factorʼs son, valley in the future and this should who was just a kid. He couldnʼt speak make it easier to travel through it. But English either, but he could speak during the time it was Snake control- French, and Douglas could speak led, this valley was not considered a French. So they had kind of a three- safe place to go. I think that was about way interpretation going, and the boy, 1828. like any boy of his age, had a sense of humor. He always misinterpreted

2 whatever Douglas told the Indian who JE: Yes, mostly Cayuse. The tribes that accompanied them. That kept him wor- have since become allied with them, or ried. Eventually, I think, he told the In- were at that time, all knew each other, dian that Douglas was a wizard and but the Cayuse had very much exclu- would change him into a bear or some- sive use of it at that time. The emi- thing. They made their trip up into grants coming through felt this would the mountains. Douglas had wanted to be a wonderful valley to establish a look into the Grande Ronde Valley, but place to live, but it was too far from they persuaded him that it was too dan- everything else, and there was no gerous to go there, so they didnʼt go. assurance that the Indians would But they must have hiked around always be friendly. So they didnʼt stay. Spout Springs [on the Tollgate Road Settlers werenʼt here until the fall of between Elgin and Weston OR]. He 1861, when they came back over the was very energetic, forever spying hill looking for gold. some new plant and getting the seeds, wrapping them up in paper, and poking I: Right. The gold rush kicked off that the paper in his pocket. By the end of infl ux. Did that start Baker City about the day he had these things protruding the same time? from him in all directions. The Indians referred to him as the Grass Man and JE: I donʼt think Baker City got started thought he was crazy. until about 1864, but Auburn [both in Baker County] began in 1861, about Douglas never did get to see the the same time as La Grande—the win- Grande Ronde Valley. He explored ter of 1861-62. The two counties have over around the headwaters of the been a little different—mining in Walla Walla River and other places Baker and agriculture in Union. But and then went on his way. It would the settlement occurred at just about have been interesting to see what he the same time. thought of the valley. The journal in which he wrote his impressions has The tribes that were here had enjoyed survived. He must have been a pretty trading with the emigrants. Usually the nice person because he didnʼt just Indians were shrewd enough bargain- order the Indian, “Come on, weʼre ers that they didnʼt often get taken by gonna take a look at that.” He said in the pioneers. One Indian was dis- his journal that he could not think of gruntled because he traded for a shirt exposing anyone else to danger, so that turned out to be threadbare, and they turned back. This was not quite the women laughed at him. Iʼm sure he the attitude of many explorers, if you was not happy, but thatʼs the only case want to call him that. I know of where anybody was discon - tented. The relationships with the I: So the Oregon Trail emigrants coming Indians were really pretty good here. into the Grande Ronde Valley would Some people say that the name Cop- most likely have encountered Cayuse Copi means Valley of Peace. It Indians? doesnʼt; it means Place of Cotton-

3 woods. I donʼt think the Grande Ronde they were going to forestall that. Valley was ever called the Valley of Actually, the people here were on a Peace, although it was a peaceful place food-gathering expedition, getting for its time. their food supply for winter. I think there were a hundred-fi fty packhorse The only hostile act that has gotten loads of roots and other food that they into the history books was the raid had gathered and quite a large number that Colonel Shaw and his party of of horses. I think the volunteers burned volunteers made in 1856—at the end all of the produce that the Indians had of the Yakima war and the other Indian gathered, took the horses they wanted, wars of that period. The Shaw party and shot the rest. This is not a bright came over from Walla Walla in July of chapter in our history. For a long time that year and whatever conference took it was handed down by people who place with the tribe didnʼt amount to had been around during that general anything. Then the shooting started. period that these brave men had come The tribe was camped where Riverside over here and forestalled a big Park is today [i.e., at the northern edge attack on all the pioneers. That was of La Grande]. The troops came from not true. what is now Summerville over through the little saddle just north of the park. I: No. Thatʼs unfortunately an all-too- They marched eight miles that morn- familiar story. ing and appeared suddenly. The In- dians saw them, of course. What fol- JE: Itʼs the only episode of that kind right lowed was a confrontation and general around here. There are stories told of shooting, and some of the tribesmen extirpations of various kinds over in tried to get away through the brush the Ochoco country, but how much of down the river. Many were hunted that is fi ction and how much of it is down; some got on horses and were fact I donʼt know. Some of it is prob- followed by the volunteers to over ably true because white settlers made around what is now Union [fi fteen efforts to get the native out so they miles east of La Grande]. Shawʼs could go in and do their own thing— command got separated; it was quite whether it was mining, agriculture, a mess. As it turned out, there probably cattle, or timber. Yes, there are some werenʼt any able-bodied warriors with dark pages in history. The Cherokees, the tribal members at all. They were who were run out of their homeland, old men, women, and kids. Many of were a highly educated people and the Indians were shot. The Cayuse might have contributed a great deal to today say that there were fi fty casual- Western civilization if theyʼd had the ties, none of which were necessary, of opportunity. course. These troops were not the reg- ulars; they were volunteers, who fi - ured there was a great plot among the Indians here to attack the whites, so

4 Beginnings of La Grande: business buildings is still standing--a Oregon Trail and Old Town false-fronted building thatʼs a dwelling now but was, I believe, the tinsmith I: How did La Grande get started as a shop. Thereʼs almost nothing up town? there now to suggest that it had ever been the business area. As long as JE: The old town of La Grande was estab- the Oregon Trail functioned—even lished in the spring and summer of after it became the government road in 1862. The old town area, during the 1861, just before the town itself emigration period, was a campground started—the Oregon Trail was Av- for the people in wagon trains. Mill enue. It went up over the hill to the Creek was handy, with a level bench, west. It was not until the late 1860s where they camped. It wasnʼt until that the Meacham Brothersʼ toll road 1861 that anything was done about was built all the way down the Grande settling it. In the fall of 1861 Daniel Ronde Canyon. Then they would not Chaplin asked a couple of fellows to have to climb a mountain and descend help stake out a land claim for him. He it again. At that time B Avenue was the told some others who spent the winter only street with stables and warehous- here, the fi rst to do so, that in the es because it was on the main Oregon spring heʼd come back and lay out a Trail road. town. He did that—laid out a town on part of his claim, which was the fi rst The road going west: I should say a settlement of La Grande. Itʼs a typical little bit about that. When it was still Roman east-west, north-south grid. the Oregon Trail up to 1860 or a little However, it was three degrees off and later, it went on up the draw at the end still is because they didnʼt compensate of B Avenue, along the bench, and then quite enough for the deviation of the straight up over the ridge behind Table compass. Itʼs at a little bit of an angle, Mountain. Some of the wagons that and Iʼm told that people who have went up there had to have as many as surveyed lots up there in order to clear eighteen oxen hitched to them to get titles have had quite a time trying to them up that steep climb. They compensate for the crooked lines. couldnʼt go sidehill because they would tip the wagons over. The gov- The original town was pretty well ernment in 1861 fi nally honored may- bounded by A through or E Avenues be the only one of the things they had and probably 1st through 4th Streets. agreed to do for the tribes in the area; Ben Brownʼs cabin, which was the fi rst this was to build a road around the one to be completed, was at the corner south side of the reservation so that of B and Cedar Streets, so thatʼs a little the emigrants wouldnʼt be tracking bit beyond where the regular grid was. across it all the time, bringing disease and other problems with them. Thereʼs an 1875 photograph with buildings identifi ed by somebody who The old road leaving La Grande had a knew what they had been. One of those switchback, you might say, installed in

5 Methodist Church Blue Mountain University Sommerʼs residence Episcopal Church

Blue Mountain House (hotel) Wilkinsonʼs Mill Odd Fellows

La Grandeʼs Old Town in about 1875 (before the railroad helped to create New Town) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

6 it so that, instead of going straight up, mouth of the canyon (underneath I-84 they started a little farther to the south now). You can see a couple of founda- on the bench and went up the mount- tions on the hillside, I think, to the ainside at an angle. If you know where north. The road then came along the to look, the traces are still there, but western edge of town; the part that theyʼre very faint now. Beyond that, it still survives is Sunset Drive. At the followed the Oregon Trail pretty much upper end of Avenue, you came across the ridge and over onto the to the business district and went east plateau north of Morgan Lake. The old along it. Fourth Street was extended road is quite visible across there going to the north, Iʼm not sure how far. In west partly because it had been the 1884, of course, it would have run all Oregon Trail and also because it had the way down to the new town. become a freight road for everything that couldnʼt go by the stage road. Coming of the Meacham Brothersʼ toll road was a Transcontinental Railroad stage road across the mountains, and that continued to operate. They were I: It was the arrival of the railroad that not handicapped in that way, but it was was the impetus for the building of the a toll road so most of the emigrant whole new town, right? travel and a lot of the freight went the other way. The government road was JE: Yes. La Grande was entirely what we only in use for a few years. now call Old Town until the railroad came through in 1884. Daniel Chaplin Fred Foster had taken over Meachamsʼ offered the railroad executives 105 station after Harvey Meacham was acres for the purpose of establishing a killed in 1872. He married Meachamʼs division point here, thereby nosing out wife later on, having worked for them, Union and North Powder as candidates and managed the toll road. He also for that facility. This was the ideal built another road of his own, the place for them to set up marshalling Foster toll road. So by 1868 the road yards and make up the trains, using had been extended all the way down locally based engines to boost them the Grande Ronde Canyon to the over the Blue Mountains [east and Grande Ronde Valley. After that, west of La Grande]. the old road across the fl at up above was discontinued; it was a terrible There was nothing down there except a thing to travel anyway. It was used, I farmhouse or two—nothing where think, by people to get up on top they wanted to put the railroad. It was to herd stock, and for a little while in all on Chaplinʼs land, and he had the 1870s it was used by people who donated some of the land to the rail had mining claims up there. road and released more for platting as the town. All of the planning and sale The road that came into La Grande of properties was taken care of by a after they reached the valley came fi rm in Portland that he engaged. There through Oro Dell, which was at the was a lot of speculation as people

7 bought up lots and resold them, and Methodist Church must have acquired these changed hands numerous times the land it sat on so that the new in 1884 and 1885. Methodist Church could be erected at that site in 1913. The Sommer house New Town, Wooden Buildings, was moved to a point on Spring Street and Fires (905), facing south, just across from the Methodist Church. I donʼt think JE: By 1886 there were quite a few build- they had intended to run Spring Street ings; the new part of the town was through because there wasnʼt really pretty well established. A number of room for it, but later they did run it people and most of the businesses through and thatʼs why part of it is immediately moved from Old Town to one-way and only one lane wide--kind trackside and built frame buildings to of an afterthought. house all of their operations. Unfortu- nately, being a wooden town, it had the More brick buildings were put up, same problem that others did: it burned though I think that the pattern there out the fi rst time on August 4, 1886. was still a predominance of wood- The fi re started in the back of Jay framed buildings. A very nice picture, Brooksʼ clothing store on the south probably taken from the top of a grain side of Adams, jumped Adams Avenue, elevator in 1889, shows the view of the and burned six or seven blocks--nearly downtown area looking west: of all the all of the town that had been built at buildings in that picture only one sur- that time. This included the railroad vives today--a brick house on 4th depot, which had been fi nished in Street where Nettie Bushnell lived for 1884. So the town was only two years many years, next door to the present old when the fi re occurred. Lester Real Estate house. I donʼt know who the original owner was. It was the They rebuilt it immediately, using house where Dr. Molitor lived in the brick for much of the new construc- latter part of the nineteenth century. tion. The principal building in the new The Sommer house was to the left and town was a big brick one put up by not in the picture. Aaron Sommer, a merchant who had a clothing store in Old Town. He moved down to New Town, put up a brick building, and also had his house moved to the intersection of 4th and Depot streets in New Town. It was a large, white one--the biggest in Old Town visible in the 1875 photograph of La Grande [see p. 6 and this page]. I think itʼs the oldest house in La Grande, built in 1872. It sat there for quite a long time till it was moved House at 905 Spring Street as it appeared in 2004 again, probably in 1912. I think the Photo by Eugene Smith

8 The town prospered for awhile until Another fi re, in December, 1891, the 4th of July, 1891. About eight in burned the south side of Adams be- the evening a fi re started in the kitchen tween Elm and Fir. That was the last of the Blue Mountain Hotel, on the major fi re. There have been others south side of Washington Avenue, since then that involved one building where the Elks Lodge is today. Again or part of a block. The other more or there was a wind to make it jump the less spectacular one of the 19th cen- street and burn more than four blocks, tury was the Pacifi c Companyʼs perhaps most of six. Aaron Sommer grain elevator, which burned in 1893. came back from Portland and put up a It was then the tallest building in La new building where the other brick one Grande at ninety-fi ve feet, across the had been; that is the Sommer building street to the west from what for many that exists today [northeast corner of years was La Grande Lumber Com- the Washington Avenue and Depot pany and is now occupied by Millerʼs Street intersection]. It was put up in Home Center [on Greenwood Street]. the fall of 1891 and remodeled to a The lot where it was is still empty. The more modern appearance in 1916. On lumber yard was Van Pettenʼs for a the northeast corner of Adams and De- long time, and I think it was the Wen- pot was the Rogers building. Rogers aha Lumber Company in 1917. had put up a one-story, brick drugstore there in 1888; when his business An Early Architect burned, he built a much bigger build- ing, which still exists in heavily re- I: Do you think there was some architec- modeled form. After the owners tural design and planning involved remodeled it in the 1970s, they called once they started building in brick, it the Phoenix Building. and, if so, who were some of the early architects?

North side of Adams Avenue, looking east from Depot Street intersection, ca. 1895 Buildings (from left), all designed by Calvin Thornton: Rogers Block (now Phoenix Building), 1891-92; Steward Block, 1891; (beyond gap) La Grande National Bank, 1889 (may have survived 1891 fi re; if not, replicated in 1892) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

9 JE: I imagine there would have been cate. Of course, you canʼt very well involvement of architects when they relocate a large, brick building. They were using wood. The person who saved the stained glass and the organ, desired the building would give for and that was about it. the architect an idea of what arrange- ment was needed and what kinds of Thornton designed the old Baptist spaces were required, and the archi- Church, which, like the Mormon tect did a sketch. They would talk Tabernacle, was brick and stone and about it--very much as it is done built in 1907. I have quite a lot of today, though probably a little less material on Thorntonʼs life. Before formally. When Calvin Thornton drew he came here he had a drugstore in up the blueprints for the Mormon Weiser. I have no idea how he got Tabernacle, which unfortunately is his training, but he had some engi- also gone, those were all done in neering ability and quite a bit of pencil. architectural talent. I think he came here in 1889, which would have I: Was the Mormon Tabernacle in the been the right time to start contrib- block where The Observer building uting what he could to the area. His is now on 4th Street? designs have an individual quality; he wasnʼt making statements as a lot JE: Yes. Though it was a very fi ne build- of modern people do, designing some- ing, the problem that the LDS [i.e., thing impractical just so it will be Latter Day Saints] had with it was that noticed. Thornton was trying to it was designed for a pedestrian popu- design elegant buildings that people lation and there was no parking space. could use. They had a large congregation, so they didnʼt have much choice but to relo- Over the course of the next twenty

Mormon Tabernacle in La Grande, 1907 (4th Street between N and O Avenues, now demolished) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

10 years, he designed a great many build- turret on the corner and the Foley ings downtown, some of which are still Hotel had one, too. But mostly those standing--the Rogers building and the were Italianate designs, done in a time Ralston building on the opposite cor- when rusticated stone, brick, and round ner, where Lawrenceʼs Jewelry is arches--or segmental arches or combi- located. I think the bank building, nations of them--were quite popular. where Mack and Sons has been until These gave a hint of classical design recently, was one of his because it was but were, I think, more Romanesque a very interesting design that I donʼt than anything else. At least as I have believe would have come from the studied architectural styles, they are. hand of anybody else. He probably designed the Sommer Hotel, and he The Slater Building might have designed the Foley Hotel. He liked that style of architecture-- JE: The Slater Building on the corner of what is now called Romanesque Re- Fir and Jefferson--the one with the vival. It went out of style about 1891 elaborate metal front on the Jefferson in other parts of the country, but it Avenue side--is probably a Thornton seems to have held on here for awhile. design. In some of the business buildings architectural historians refer to detail I: Is that on the National Register of as being Queen Anne, but I think the Historic Buildings? only reason they do might be that some of the buildings had turrets on the JE: Yes, it is. I helped put it on for Bill corners and windows with marginal Geddes when he had the building panes in various colors. The Geiser quite a few years ago. I couldnʼt fi nd Grand Hotel in Baker City has a the architect listed anywhere, but Iʼm

Baptist Church in La Grande, designed by Calvin Thornton, 1907 (now demolished) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

11 pretty sure that was Thornton. The I: It was almost like a new style--taking detailing on the east side looks like elements of an older style and mixing his work. them, right?

I: Would that be called an iron-front JE: Yes. Like an Erector set, Lego, or building? Lincoln Logs and using these standard- ized components to come up with your JE: No, itʼs sheet metal--La Grandeʼs only own combinations. The front on the metal-front building. Those were done Slater Building, I would say, is more by a company in St. Louis--Mesker Italianate than anything else. Brothersʼ Metal Fronts. Others have an Mesker developed them during the elaborate oriel [i.e., large, often round- 1870s and ʻ80s, and they came up ed, projecting window supported by a into the twentieth century. The corbel or bracket], a fancy bay win- Meskers were attempting to design dow, or really fancy cornice or other relatively fi reproof buildings. If you design on the front. Mesker produced had a metal front on your building, you all kinds of components--colonnades, had a lower insurance rate. friezes, plinths, brackets, cornices, par- apets--everything you might need on a The old Sanborn fi re insurance atlases, building. The components were all which are the best city plans we have interchangeable so that they could be of the period, were color-keyed so that combined in a multitude of ways. The a building was indicated as being buildings didnʼt all have to look alike, brick or with a metal roof or metal- so builders had a lot of fun with them. sided or whatever to indicate how much of a risk it was to insure it.

Slater Building (left) in La Grande, Spring, 1892 (southwest corner of First Street and Jefferson Avenue) The space with two planks in front was Mr. Carperʼs business school, called Eastern Oregon College (fi rst use of the name); the building had just been completed, and Carper was in process of moving in. Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

12 The man responsible for the Slater There are a few pictures of it. It Building was James H. Slater, who had burned in 1966. been a congressman and an attorney in Salem for a long time. He and his I: Where was it? family came west in a wagon train in 1853, I believe. He moved here in JE: It was where the Long Branch is now the ʻ70s. He built it as commercial on --just a little block building in between the ground fl oor and offi ces upstairs, the two brick ones. In its heyday there occupied by himself and two of his was a brothel upstairs and a restaurant sons, James D. and Robert, who were downstairs, which was not an uncom- in partnership with him. The partner- mon combination. ship lasted, I imagine, till .H. died. Robert went to Pendleton to practice Filling in between Old and New and James D. took over the practice Towns and Street Naming here. The other son was a sort of mav- erick because he became a builder. He I: When did the old and new parts of La built Riveria School, among other Grande combine? structures, and he built this house that weʼre sitting in. He listed himself as a JE: It was a long time before Old Town contractor for a long time and in later and New Town grew together. The area years listed himself as an architect. that was the residential part of Chap- He apparently had some architect- linʼs addition to La Grande and also ural training to go along with building. Green Arnoldʼs [Chaplinʼs brother-in- law]--everything west of 4th and up, The Slater Building was still occupied maybe, to Walnut--fi lled in pretty by James D. Slater until the West quickly. A lot of that activity continued Jacobson building was completed in into the 1920s. Quite a lot of that was 1913; it is still there and in use. He more prestigious housing than youʼd moved to the new site as soon as it was fi nd in some of the less expensive available because by that time Jeffer- residential areas. Main Avenue, where son was not a terribly good location; this house is located, was one of the something on Adams was preferable. better quality streets of that time; so But the Slater is a good building. Iʼm were Spring and Washington. Wash- glad we have it because there arenʼt ington was always called Washington too many of the Mesker fronts left. Avenue, but where the diagonal part of it ends at 4th Street, Washing- There was one other building down- ton continues east-west as tradition- town that had a largely metal front— al streets do. At that point, where it where the Imperial Cafe was [on crossed 4th, it became Park Avenue, Depot between Jefferson and Adams]. then was Park up as far as it went. The second fl oor had a big sheetmetal This got to be a nuisance, I think, to oriel window and above that a very many people, and by the 1890s some elaborate metal cornice with a gabled blocks of it were referred to as Wash- pediment--a very handsome front. ington. By the early 1900s it was all

13 Washington; Park disappeared. The time on top of that. But the original westward extension of Jefferson, balloon-frame construction starts with beyond 4th, was fi rst called Court Av- the foundations and stands as tall as enue. the house. It was a different kind of skeleton, but it was still a frame house. Some of the other streets have been re- After the studs were put up, they were named or changed, though I canʼt think sort of scabbed together so that they of any that were markedly different. stood, and then the fl oor joists were There was O Avenue, and the next one nailed into the studs. Firestops and is Penn. They probably didnʼt want to sway braces were put up into the walls call it P Street for obvious reasons. Q --say thirty-fi ve-foot high walls, prob- was also avoided, but and S are ably hollow all the way to the bottom commonly used. if they didnʼt have fi restops (and most did). Builders were well aware that fi re I: Donʼt the street names go all the way going up inside of the wall could get to Z? away in a hurry.

JE: All the way to Z and then something I: What kind of material was used for the else had to be substituted. You get into fi restop? confusing situations when you run out of numbers or out of the alphabet and JE: Ordinary two-by-fours--rough two-by- then have to fudge a little, as in some fours at that time. of the developments where all of the streets have names; this makes ad- I: Would they stop the draft air? dresses a little more diffi cult to fi nd. I often refer to what I consider a joke JE: Yes. There needed to be something to about Salem [i.e., Oregon State capi- stop the draft. In those days buildings tal]: Church and State are not separat- didnʼt have wiring, so they didnʼt have ed in Salem; they intersect a block to do any boring, drilling, or threading. west of the capital building. Until we got water systems, the plumb- ing was pretty rudimentary, too. Later, Other Old Houses in La Grande, these older houses were retrofi tted including the Evansʼs with wiring and plumbing. I think we had electricity here by 1891 and a I: Tell me about some of the notable decent water system that they could residences that were built in New use for fi refi ghting shortly after the Town. Were most of them frame? second big fi re--somewhere in the JE: Yes. Old-style balloon framing is a early ʻ90s. little different from the modern bal- loon-frame construction, in which the I: Are there older houses still standing? builder makes a wall one fl oor high, perhaps eight feet, stands it up, lays a JE: One brick is on 4th, probably built in platform on top of it, and puts up 1884. another eight-foot wall a chunk at a

14 I: Thatʼs the one next to Lester Real I: At least that information is available if Estate on 4th? people wanted to do the research.

JE: Yes. Iʼm sure it was built about 1884. JE: If someone wants to research a house, There are some up in Old Town that it can be done. For the one Iʼve been were probably built in 1870s. It would living in, Iʼve been lucky in many be hard to tell because a lot of them respects. Itʼs only had a few owners. have been rebuilt several times, so For the people who originally built it thereʼs nothing much to indicate what in 1892 there is a record of who they they were originally. Iʼd have to re- were and what business the man was search the history of every single in. When the house was built, Mrs. house in order to be sure about their Conkey took out a loan from the age. The assessorʼs offi ce guesses at bank. It was seven hundred dollars to them usually and says “about 1890” or be paid off at hundred dollars a year. “about 1900.” The house cost eighteen hundred to build. By 1899 it was paid for, and There was a time when a buyer of once it was paid off, she sold it to the property got a thick abstract that gave bank. the complete history of the property-- all the hands it had passed through and I: She sold the house to the bank? everything else clear back to the beginning when it was fi rst sold from JE: Not exactly to the bank. La Grande state lands. But that hasnʼt been done National Bank, later First National, for a long time. They simply check the seems to have owned quite a bit of records to see that the property is free property. She sold it to the cashier at and clear for title insurance, which is the bank, .. Myers. He lived in it the main consideration. For the history, until 1908 and then moved into a big an owner has to do research both at the house that still stands at First and courthouse and in the abstract and title Spring. This house was owned by the company or some other fi rm that bank until 1920, and they seem to handles titles. have rented it out during that period.

House on 4th Street, built in late 1880s, The Evansʼs house on Main Street, as it appeared in 2004 built in1892, as it appeared in 2004 Photo by Eugene Smith Photo by Eugene Smith

15 In 1920 it was sold to the Moats nothing like that around here. The family, who had it until 1961. We ones that do have columns are all bought it from the man it was sold to, much later--Classical Revival or who had fi xed it up somewhat. Weʼve Colonial Revival. had it forty-one years and have largely restored it. The next style in most cases after Gothic is the Renaissance Revival, I: Who built it? which are usually big, square houses, with round-top windows and brack- JE: The little item in the paper said that eted eaves; generally they donʼt Charles Conkey was going to put up have gables but they do have a an eighjteen-hundred-dollar house and hipped roof--or even a fl at roof in John Slater was going to build it for some places. There are a lot of those him. I have no idea who designed it. around the Portland area that date Calvin Thornton might have. The from the ʻ60s, ʻ70s, and into the ʻ80s. fl oor plan is a little unusual in some By the late ʻ80s they were starting to respects, which makes me think that it put up Queen Anne houses, which probably didnʼt come out of a plan generally had towers with conical book. roofs, fancy porch work, and a veranda that went part way around the house Architectural Styles instead of the earlier smaller porches.

I: Do you want to talk about the so- Our house is a version of Queen Anne called Victorian style? Would you call called Eastlake because of the trim, this house Victorian? which shows the infatuation with Jap- anese prints that continued for a long JE: Yes. I guess, technically, that anything time late in the nineteenth century. We built between 1837 and 1901 is Victo- have a porch railing in an oriental- rian. A house built in 1901 or later is appearing design. Charles Eastlake probably Edwardian, at least for a little was a tastemaker of the 1870s and while. But the principal early Victorian ʻ80s, who preached a return to simple styles in America are Gothic, from the designs. He said, “Get rid of all these 1840s and ʻ50s, and Greek Revival. curves, and letʼs get things returned to Those really do look like Greek basic shapes.” He was thinking along temples; most of them were back the lines of William Morris and some east and there are a few in the Willam- others. The term for their school ette Valley, but none in this area. escapes me, but it was a return to medieval styles. I: With lots of columns? I: The Pre-Raphaelites? JE: Yes. Usually Doric columns--some Ionic and some Corinthian. They had JE: Yes. Pre-Raphaelites. Rosetti and so the fancy portico with the gabled pedi- forth. Eastlake refl ected their tempera- ment and a dentiled frieze. Thereʼs ment pretty much. But in this country

16 his style was interpreted a little differ- house. I have always liked them. But ently. We had the curves of Renais- many have been changed a great deal. sance Revival furniture with lots of carving and crests on top. So we Most Victorians have bay windows. In changed to a new style, the Eastlake the 1850s, when Downing was design- style, but it was the same furniture ing Gothic houses, they all had bay with the same kind of wood except windows that he referred to as conser- it was square across the top; we just vatories; they were a place to put got rid of some of the curves. It potted plants. Theyʼre also a good stayed elaborate and Victorian. place to set a Christmas tree.

I: Have you tried to fi nd furniture that I: You have one bay window in your matches the style as much as you can? front parlor.

JE: Up to a point and in a way. The styles JE: Right. An archway connects the parlor we like best are Renaissance Revival. to the entry. The sliding doors lead [pointing] That table is an Eastlake, a from the parlor into the room weʼre fair example of it, a little late. The sitting in; I think this was always a styles that were probably used in 1892 dining room. Across the hall was a when this house was built were likely bedroom, and the room south of here golden oak, which is a little bit past the was a bedroom. There was an open Eastlake style. I imagine golden oak porch on the east side, which was en- would have been primarily what the closed during the 1930s or ʻ40s, and Conkeys had. I like walnut better. Itʼs used as a sleeping porch; now it is part just a matter of personal preference. of the sitting room, which is what the And the styles were just about as intri- back bedroom has been turned into. cate as the others. The sideboard here One of the interesting things about the is probably more Queen Anne than house design is that it had a bathroom Eastlake in that the decoration is built into it before plumbing was avail- simpler--not quite so fussy. able; they knew plumbing was going to be here pretty quickly. There was a I: Were you able to preserve a number of private passage that went from the the features you wanted in your house bedroom back to the kitchen, and before they were remodeled away? the bathroom was off of it. It was also available through a separate door. JE: The man who had bought the house There were a lot of doors in the house, was doing modernization, some of which I guess was common. But the which was desirable in a way, but he private passage was a closet you could had gone a little too far with some of it walk through all the way. One reason and he hadnʼt gone as far as he wanted for this was that they didnʼt have to with other parts. We saved the clothes hangers, at least as a common porch, which he would have taken off, thing, so there was a strip of batten and some other things. I feel very down each side of the hall with hooks lucky to have gotten a good Victorian in it for hanging coats and shirts, as

17 you would on pegs. That has since Bohnenkamp House: “The Castle” become a closet and a place for the vanity in the bathroom. I: The house we call “The Castle” on 2nd Street: what style would you call The kitchen was still a nineteenth-cen- that? tury style. The remodeler had put in an island and some other things, but it JE: Itʼs a Queen Anne, but itʼs a very late wasnʼt a really large room like the old one. .H. Bohnenkamp had that house kitchens were. It had a pantry to keep built in 1907, the very end of the the dishes, the sink in the corner, Victorian styles. I have no idea who probably a worktable in the middle of the architect was. Nearly everything the room, a big range on the wall, and that was coming on at that time was a water tank. A wood lift that went either bungalow style, arts and crafts, down to the basement was no longer or Colonial Revival. The thing that there when we moved in. All the gives The Castle away as being a meals, of course, were served in the really late one is the railings around dining room. It wasnʼt really intended the porch--a Classical Revival porch. for eating and socializing in the Those are Corinthian columns, and kitchen. Palladian windows are up above--that is, a central window with a window on There was one narrow, open porch that either side. There are some other fronted on the alley, so it was always touches that show that this is in the dirty. When we remodeled the kitchen, Colonial Revival era, late 1800s on we took in the back porch to give us an to 1920. So itʼs a Queen Anne house extra three feet; now itʼs a sizable with all kinds of Colonial Revival room. Itʼs nice to sit around the table touches--maybe the last of its kind. out there. The back pantry was ideal for the washer and dryer, and the outside entrance is now there. So I would say this is a modernization that increased the comfort. It has evolved while weʼve been in it, but Iʼve tried to save as much as I could of what was attractive and bring back some of the things that werenʼt here any longer.

I: Youʼve done a great deal of the work yourself, havenʼt you?

JE: Quite a bit.

W.H. Bohnenkamp house at 2nd Street and Spring Avenue, as it looked about 1912 Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

18 Interestingly enough Mr. Bohnenkamp tect. He described it as being a combi- had a number of children, but by the nation of Colonial and Federal. You time he built it they were not too far can see the Federal design elements in from having their own homes. By it. Itʼs a house that could have been 1912, I believe, it had been converted built around 1820. to apartments, which is very early. Thereʼs a lot of original stuff in it. It I: When was the house built? would be nice to restore that one. JE: I think it was fi nished in 1923. Stange Ceilings have been lowered and above was a lumberman from Wisconsin, them the plaster has been all torn up by who had come out here quite a bit heating pipes being run every which earlier to buy timber. He established way. Youʼd have to convert a lot of the Mt. Emily Lumber Company, things. Thereʼs a big fi replace in the which is now Boise Cascadeʼs La front parlor, which is walled up. Some- Grande plant. He did some nice things one did fi nally locate the corner lights for La Grande. In 1912 he wanted and the transom sash for the front shady streets, since he was from the entrance and got them fi tted in; they Midwest and liked shade. He imported look really nice. There have only been a large number of soft maples and two genuine mansions in La Grande, planted them all up and down 2nd and and itʼs one of them. 3rd. Some of them are still standing; theyʼre getting very large, old, and The big houses up on the hill [on 2nd rotten. Theyʼre not a long-life tree, but Street] that have wide porches with they grow fast and produced abundant columns are Colonial Revival houses: shade. Those were his gift to the city. the former Helm place is one, the His house is about what you would former Reynolds place across the street expect--a mansion. Thereʼs an indoor to the south is another. The less ambi- fountain in the sun room, and in the tious ones are on Washington; our son basement thereʼs a little theater with a lives in one. It has a columned porch stage; the kids did theatricals there. across the front, but it isnʼt a bunga- low. Itʼs more of a Colonial Revival I: Iʼve been in the house a few times, but house than a bungalow. Iʼve never really toured it.

Stange House* JE: I toured it forty years ago, before they had done anything to it. Itʼs been I: Which is La Grandeʼs other mansion? preserved very nicely.

JE: The other one is the Stange house. ______

I: How would you describe that house? *Editorʼs note: the original spelling of the Stange name included an e. In recent years, one of the owners JE: It was the fi rst big commission for decided that that spelling led to mispronunciations and dropped the e. For historical reasons, the original spell- Charles Miller, the La Grande archi- ing is preferred.

19 Building Materials sawmill established, since itʼs very labor intensive to hew logs by hand I: The original buildings in Old Town and hoist them into place. With boards, would have been made with logs, they could build rapidly, and the type right? of construction they used in those days was lots faster and simpler than the JE: The very fi rst ones, yes. later types, though it certainly wasnʼt weatherproof. They simply stood I: Were there sawmills later? boards on end with a batten up the joint and two-by-fours across the in- JE: There were several, though I havenʼt side, at the bottom, and across middle, seen a list of sawmills. The one and across the top. There was a house thatʼs best known is Charles Foxʼs in Old Town--itʼs been torn down now mill, which was located on the Grande and has been gone for quite a few Ronde River at Oro Dell, at the bottom years--but maybe into the 1970s that of Fox Hill [northwest of La Grande]. building was still in use. At that time it It was certainly one of the early ones, was already over a hundred years old. started in 1863. But there must have It was a single-wall house, and all the been others because they brought a lot door frames stuck into the room a good of timber out of Deal Canyon, above four inches. The space in between Robert Dealʼs place. Some of it was them was just the inside of that wall. It fi rewood, of course: they had to have had been covered with wallpaper and fi rewood to burn. But there was a lot other things years ago, but nobody had of good timber up there, and it looks ever furred it out and put anything on pretty good today, too, a hundred and the inside, which they sometimes did. fi fty years later. So in winter it was a mighty cold house because the wind blew right The demand for timber, of course, had through it. It was a pretty house but not been great, so the very fi rst thing they a sound one. It wasnʼt till the 1880s probably would have done was to get a probably that balloon-frame construc- tion became generally accepted around here.

I: So for those fi rst twenty years or so they used single-wall construction?

JE: Quite a lot of it.

I: What about a brick yard? Did that come later?

Home of August Stange family, JE: Not too much later because Aaron La Grande, ca. 1940 Sommer, who was one of the early Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens merchants, put up the fi rst brick

20 building in La Grande sometime prior there.* He named it after a friend of to 1882. I think most of the clay his in Salem, Alexander Sommerville, deposits came from the same area, but he spelled it Summerville, which around the Grande Ronde Canyon. people would remember. They There was a brick maker in early La wouldnʼt think of the other spelling. Grande, who is mentioned in one of the very early directories, and there Early Newspapers in Union County was a brickyard here until quite re- cently; the Jensens had it for a long I: What do you know about two newspa- time. There werenʼt any city directo- pers founded in the 1860s? I think one ries in that period, but there were was a Democratic paper and the other regional business directories. Any Republican. town that had any business in it usually advertised in the publication or got JE: They were both fi rst printed in 1868. themselves listed because otherwise The very fi rst one was the Blue Moun- there wasnʼt any way they could have tain Times, which was a Republican any advertising. The bricklayer men- paper published by .G. Baker, an tioned in the 1867 directory may have attorney, and George Coggan, a busi- been a fellow that put up the Sommer nessman. I donʼt know very much brick building. about Baker. Coggan was killed during the Bannock uprising, near I: I wanted to ask you about the name Pendleton, on July 12, 1878. Their Sommer. The name of the town fi rst issue was printed on April 18, Summerville has different spelling. 1868. In later years a story was told by That has nothing to do with the name E.S. McComas, who published The Sommer? Mountain Sentinel (later called The Sentinel), that there was a race be- JE: No. The people in La Grande were tween that paper and a Republican Aaron and Daniel Sommer. The town rival, each one trying to be the fi rst to of Summerville, according to Oregon get their paper on the street. He said Geographic Names [by Lewis A. the fi rst one—the Democrat paper—hit McArthur, Oregon Historical Society the street three or four hours ahead of Press, 1992, sixth edition], was named the other. In fact The Sentinel, the ______by the man who fi rst put a building *According to Emery Oliver, who was born in Summerville and has lived there for 92 years, McAr- thurʼs explanation is incorrect. He said that a group of settlers in the late 1800s wanted to start a town north of the present Summerville and to call it Winterville. Instead, they started the town a few miles south and called it Summerville. [Interview with Emery Oliver, February 11, 2004] La Grande brickmaking yard, ca. 1920 (near northwest of La Grande) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

21 Democrat paper, was actually two something be done about the Indians, weeks later than The Blue Mountain but it all came to nothing, fortunately, Times. and the Indians crossed the into Idaho. That was the end of E.S. McComas, An Interesting Man that particular scare.

JE: McComas was an interesting character, He wasnʼt just a yellow journalist in who probably should have a book the worst sense of that term, but he written about him because he did so didnʼt mind doing a little bit of sensa- many things and what he did was often tional reporting or editorializing. fascinating. He came here in 1862 and His stuff is often colorful, he had a lot wrote one of the better diaries of the of news, and the paper was quite a westward journey. He and the fellows lively one and, for its time, a pretty he traveled with spent the winter at good one. Auburn [near Baker City], working in the mines. He took a wagon all the He published The Sentinel for about way to The Dalles and back to get fourteen years. When the county seat provisions for their winter stay. After was moved in the election of 1874, he the settlement era started in earnest, he moved along with it to Union and became part of the La Grande business published the paper there because all scene. He was always an entrepreneur business of the county was transacted or a busy man, you could say, one of there until 1904. In 1901 the county the three fellows that got the fi rst drug- boundaries were redrawn, and La store established in La Grande. He Grande knew it would get the county operated a hotel for awhile, hauled seat after the next election. It tried for wood part of the time, and became the it a time or two before then and didnʼt Register of Public Lands for awhile. make it. He did all kinds of things. McComas fi nally retired about 1882 Starting the newspaper gave him a and continued with various other good outlet for his personality, which activities. He was always involved was a little fl amboyant. During the with promotions of one kind or another 1870s he agitated pretty strongly for and traveled widely, usually with two a war of extermination with the tribes big valises full of interesting things. As of the area, particularly the Nez Perce, one of the people who have written because he felt that in Wallowa County about him said, he sold shares in mines they stood in the way of progress. He that should be there and werenʼt or didnʼt hate them at all; he just thought shares in a lake that might have they were in the way. I think he was medicinal properties, and lots in towns infl uential to some extent because he that hadnʼt been platted yet. He must blew some subjects out of proportion have been a pretty good talker because and said a few things that werenʼt he usually came home wealthy. The so. There was a delegation to the legis- money disappeared quickly, so he had lature from that area insisting that to go back on the road again.

22 When he came home, the fi rst thing he seventy-two, when he was living near did was to go down to the jail and Wallowa. He had nieces, who later bail out any Indians that had been started writing about him. One of arrested for drunkenness. He often them who took a writing class in the brought strays home with him. One 1930s wrote several versions of her was a Chinese man, who had been memories of him, lightly fi ctionalized stranded somewhere; he came along but obviously taken directly from life. and was cook for E.S. for awhile. He did help unfortunate people--an un- The Observer and Other usual and interesting man. Small Newspapers

Pretty much toward the end of his I: Were the early newspapers weeklies? career he got into patent medicines. One of his friends was Chief Whirl- JE: Yes. They were all weeklies. The wind of the Cayuse Nation, who Observer, which started as a weekly on went with him on the medicine-show October 20, 1896, introduced a daily circuit for some time. His line was paper November 1, 1901, but it didnʼt Whirlwind Remedies; he dressed up in take at fi rst; in 1903 they went back to a fancy western suit like the one Buf- daily, and that form has been with us falo Bill Cody wore when he did his ever since. One or two others in La show, and the chief usually appeared in Grande tried it and failed because there full regalia. just wasnʼt enough demand. But evi- dently somebody created the demand In 1911, McComas died at the age of by providing the right content. All of this information is in an article I wrote that was printed in The Observer several years ago.

La Grande Observer building at Washington E.S. McComas and Chief Whirlwind, Avenue and 6th Street, February, 1985 ca. 1890s (now demolished) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

23 I: I imagine the technology of those early about as soon as itʼs printed. Most of weeklies was pretty much hand-set the old newspapers that have survived type. The linotype machine came in are crumbling. Theyʼre so fragile you the ʻ80s or ʻ90s, didnʼt it? canʼt handle them. The Observer had a fairly complete fi le in its vaults. Dur- JE: Yes. For the very early ones the ing the last years they were in the old printer had a type font and a simple building [at Washington and 6th, next press with an ink roller. Mergenthalerʼs to the present post offi ce], the staff machines came along fairly late. I kept using the old issues to put inter- believe The Observer had one esting items in the current papers. By around 1900. the time they were ready to move to the new building, the bindings were Those early printers were a different coming off and the papers themselves breed of people. If you read up on the were disintegrating into loose sheets old newspapers, you keep fi nding the and pieces. same names. In Wallowa County there was a guy who had been working in La I: Did the Summerville paper last very Grande; they moved around. Occasion- long? ally, someone tried to run a paper in a town the size of Flora or Summerville. JE: No, I think it began and ended in 1890. They had a very uphill battle and had I donʼt think it survived much longer to be doing it for the love of the art. than that. So many little towns made They really had to love newspaper an effort to print a paper. Lostine publishing and like to see their work in [near Wallowa in Wallowa County] print. Some of them certainly couldnʼt had a paper; it had a rough time, too, have made more than an absolute and was combined with one that bare minimum of living. I have an covered the rest of the area. Wallowa issue, the only surviving one, of the had a paper, The Wallowa News, that Summerville Annotator. The only was fairly well supported from 1911 reason it survived is because of the and later became The Wallowa Sun, kind of paper it was printed on. The which lasted until 1944. The editor got regular stock paper hadnʼt been deliv- bent out of shape over something with ered before the deadline. So the editor the people of the town--probably not printed on butcher paper he got from feeling they were supporting him well one of the local butchers; itʼs much enough. He moved it to Enterprise. better paper than the acid newsprint of Later Wallowa had another paper, The the day, so the paper is crisp and Wallowa Record, published by a rattly and still in pretty good shape. couple of fellows who also published a paper in Elgin. I: The acid-based paper didnʼt survive long, I take it. La Grande Drugstores

JE: No. The acid paper starts to decay I: Letʼs talk about drugstores. Youʼre

24 working now on research into early JE: Yes. They waited a little longer for drugstores in La Grande. Please say the drugstore, maybe, than some small more about the fi rst one. towns did, but obviously there was a need for it with three people backing JE: For the fi rst one three people com- it. bined their resources in order to get it started, so there must have been a fair I: Was there a competing drugstore at demand for it. The three people in- about the same time? volved were a man named Hulsey, a doctor; Robert Deal, for whom Deal JE: None of the old directories Iʼve con- Canyon was named; and E.S. McCom- sulted shows one until about 1881 or as. Deal was a man of several occupa- ʻ82--a ten-year gap, at least. By 1883 tions, as most of those people were. the drugstore in Old Town was oper- He was a farmer and a butcher, had a ated by Joseph Palmer; when the new livery stable, and rented horses. town was established, he moved there McComas was Register of State and the drugstore became Newlin and Lands, operated a hotel part-time, and Palmer. Ferdinand Newlin was the did several other things like the news- other person involved. paper. Through their combined efforts they got the fi rst drugstore going. I: In those early drugstores wasnʼt the doctor really the pharmacist? A few years later the Hulsey and Mahafee drugstore was apparently a JE: Indeed, he was. If there wasnʼt a drug- going concern. Many of the early drug- store, he had to make his own pills stores were established by doctors, if he couldnʼt order from some fi rm. which is a logical thing. They used a Of course, if someone needed the lot of medicines, and this would be one medication in a hurry and it took a good way to get them, keep them all in month-and-a-half to get it, the patient one place, and maybe sell some of probably didnʼt survive long enough to them on the side. So having the drug- try it out. They had to have a supply on store was a good idea. Another local hand, I would think. doctor of the 1880s and ʻ90s was E.D. Steincamp. Dr. Steincamp at one time I: Did drug stores sell other items--patent had the drugstore in Granite, up in the medicines, for example? mining country. JE: Yes. There were a lot of patent medi- I: About when was the Hulsey-Deal- cines in those days before the Pure McComas drugstore in La Grande Food and Drug Act of 1906. Some of started? those medicines were quite effective, though there were little problems JE: 1867. involved. For example, the soothing syrup for babies worked like a charm, I: Would it have been, and then, in Old but it was mostly laudanum, which is Town? the same as opium and not at all that good for a child.

25 I: Wasnʼt laudanum occasionally mixed I: People could walk in and buy them with alcohol? over the counter, right?

JE: Yes. Paregoric [i.e., camphorated JE: Yes. Arsenic came in very handy tincture of opium] was often used that sometimes. Lafeyette C. Baker, who way. The thing that made you feel was something of a charlatan and not better in the patent medicines--the altogether honest, was head of the bitters and so on--was the alcohol in Secret Service during Lincolnʼs admin- them. You felt very pleasant. istration. He swore that he knew a lot about various congressmen and other I: The opium, too, would have had that people who had been involved in the effect. assassination plot; he died of arsenic poisoning before he could reveal what JE: It would indeed. Too many people he supposedly knew. were becoming addicted to things like morphine and opium simply because La Grandeʼs Hospitals the medicine worked and they took it. The patent medicines were mostly I: Iʼd like to ask you another health- alcohol, fl avored with a little bit of related question. What can you say grass to give them an herbal appear- about early hospitals in La Grande? ance. Some of them were quite harm- ful, so the government had to apply JE: The doctor in Wallowa when I was some standards, which they did in growing up had a fairly large building 1906. Since then medicine has been a with upstairs rooms for patients. He lot safer. conducted it as a kind of hospital, with his offi ces on the ground fl oor, and he I: So in the 1860s and ʻ70s drugstores lived next door to it. In La Grande the could have sold any number of things only one I know of that was actually without a prescription? called a hospital was the Grande Ronde Hospital, which was established JE: Yes. They sold whatever was avail- able. This was true up until World War II. You could buy almost any chemical you wanted through the drugstore.

I: Like arsenic, for instance?

JE: I was thinking of things like various dyes used in woodworking--logwood extract, alkanet root, and all those things used to color various fi nishes. Another was mercuric chloride that Former Grande Ronde Hospital, 1908 was used for browning steel. (now demolished) Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

26 by three local doctors and opened in mal School, now Eastern Oregon Uni- 1908. They were Dr. Molitor, Dr. versity], John Bennes. He went on to Richardson, and Dr. Bacon. There was Portland and designed buildings there a need for a hospital, so they estab- for various places around the state; lished Grande Ronde [located at the much of his work was for various west end of Adams Avenue, now campuses in the stateʼs Higher Educa- demolished]. The idea of a hospital tion System. The Hot Lake building was certainly prevalent during the was put up with the idea that it was to 1880s and ʻ90s, particularly the ʻ90s, be a sanitarium--a hospital and cura- but getting one going was a different tive facility. People could take the matter. waters and recover from whatever ail- ments they had. It had also an operat- I: Most babies were born at home, were ing room--a fully equipped hospital. they not? It was quite busy--one of the best in the country, it was said at the time. JE: Yes. Often midwives took care of that. That was into the 1920s until the time If the doctor had a nurse and he made of the Depression. It was an important her available for childbirths, then it early hospital for this area. was a little more formal. An Old Ledger The brick building that Hot Lake sanitarium [editorʼs note: sanitorium is I: Youʼve told me you found an old an alternate spelling] occupied ledger in Lee Johnsonʼs collection. [approx. six miles southeast of La Could we talk about that? Grande] was completed in 1906, designed by the same architect that JE: It is a big, heavy book, leather-bound designed the administration building at in heavy boards, that belonged to a the college [i.e., Eastern Oregon Nor- store or operation of some sort in Hilgard [approximately eleven miles northwest of La Grande]. I have no idea where he got it. This one, as with so many such things that are discarded, has no fl yleaf, and whatever informa- tion it bore about the company or the fi rm it came from is missing. The fi rst pages were torn out, and materials at the end were also torn out, so what we have is just the body of the thing. It Hot Lake Sanitorium (southeast of La Grande) starts as if someone wanted page one in its early days, ca. 1910s so they didnʼt get anything torn out but Building on left is the brick facility built in the fl yleaf and probably the attached 1906; wooden buildings it replaced (right) were erected in the late 1800s and were title page. It would be nice if we still destroyed by fi re in 1934. had those pages. Whoever was clean- Photo courtesy of Fred Hill ing out the storerooms or the old

27 offi ces would remove the identifying were apparently no longer supplying information, and then the rest of it ties; it is mostly sales. normally went to the dump. This one didnʼt go to the dump, and Iʼm glad it The railroad, when it was being built didnʼt because it tells a great deal through the mountains in 1883, had to about what was being bought and sold have a lot of ties. Most of the people at Hilgard, which was quite a bustling who settled around Kamela and little place until fairly recently. Meacham [approximately fi ve and ten miles, respectively, northwest of Hil- I know the names of some of the gard], had what are referred to fre- people who had mills up that way, but quently as homesteads; they were I have no idea what this business was actually timber claims. Many of them or who operated it. I believe that it made a living, probably precarious, by would be possible, if someone wanted cutting ties for the railroad. According to, to go through the 1880 census of to the ledger, the place they unloaded Union County a page at a time--to the ties was Hilgard, rather than fi nd who was in business at Hilgard; Kamela or Meacham. At that time that would take care of it. But that they were paying twenty-six cents per will be probably for someone else.* If tie, including one penny for loading Iʼm not mistaken, Daniel Chaplin had the ties. Though this was hard, stren- a mill there. He was quite a wise man uous work, a few fellows brought in when it came to business; he didnʼt one or two thousand ties and got a siz- just invest in real estate but also had a able chunk of money in exchange for sawmill either at Meacham or Hilgard. them. But for the most part the ties Iʼm not sure which. were in dribbles of two hundred or so. Considering that men had to select a I: A book like this is the raw material of tree of the right diameter--around ten history, it seems to me. inches or better--they also had to cut them to length and adze them on two JE: Yes, it is. This is evidence. If you donʼt sides so that there would be a fl at have evidence, everything else is just a underside to lie on the roadbed and a story. I know some very interesting fl at upper side to spike the plates to for stories that would be fun to substanti- the track. The ties were spaced about ate, if it could be done. two feet apart and werenʼt creosoted, so they rotted fairly quickly. It was a The ledger begins in 1891 and goes matter of constant replacement. through to 1894. A large part of their operation was buying ties for the rail- The branch line [from La Grande] to road, though this was not the only Elgin was completed in 1891; some of thing they did there. The later part is the ledger entries are for Elgin. Ties in a different hand, written when they were also cut for the branch-line ______extension to Joseph. And for an unde- * Note by JE: “I have performed that task since the termined length of time after that, there interview was conducted but found nothing conclusive. I believe the ledger is from R.M. Steeleʼs operation.” were supplies for replacements.

28 Eventually, ties were mill-produced; I JE: The fi rst train came into La Grande on suppose some mills specialized in that. the 4th of July, 1884, marking the Perhaps the large mill that was at Hil- completion of the track. But regular gard did that. They were milled on all passenger service didnʼt start until four sides and eventually creosoted or about the nineteenth. Freight, of pressure treated. course, came sooner than that because a lot of them carried the rails, ties, and I: What kind of wood was this, fi r or whatnot to the end of the line. pine, perhaps? I: Were they building from both direc- JE: I imagine that they probably used tions? anything they could get. When they were completing the line, it would JE: Yes, they were. The line through here have been pine, Iʼm sure--certainly fi r, from the west was the Oregon Rail- which is much more durable, when- way and Navigation Company, ever they could fi nd it. I think the OR&N, which belonged to Henry supply of tamarack, as we call it, was Villard. He went broke through over- pretty well depleted there, when I extending on the Great Northern, so it think how many it would take to do came to a halt. He turned over his 50 miles of railroad, for example. operation to the Union Pacifi c, who They were building through pretty took just the name and used it as a much virgin country, so hiring people wholly owned subsidiary. For the to cut the ties was a reasonable solu- purposes of building to meet it, Union tion to the supply problem. Pacifi c had started the Oregon Short Line, another wholly owned subsid- Passenger Train Service iary, and ran it west. The two lines met in Huntington in November, I: If the main line was completed in 1884. Around the turn of the century 1884, when did the fi rst passenger the OR&N became the OWR&N train come through? [Oregon Washington Railway and Navigation Company].

First passenger train to arrive at La Grande depot, 1884 Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

29 I: So the train that came in here came held them up, but they got away in from the east? May. It was around the fi rst of Novem- ber when they hit the Willamette Val- JE: No, it came from Portland. By the 4th ley. So it was a precarious trip. By the of July it could come this far to cel- time they got as far as the Blue Moun- ebrate the arrival of the train in La tains [surrounding the Grande Ronde Grande. They probably had another Valley], it was usually October, and celebration a little later when the track they had to worry about early snows. reached Baker City and then Hunting- By the time they got down to The ton. Dalles one hundred seventy-seven miles west of La Grande, on the Co- I: Somebody could have gone from La lumbia River], a lot of them built rafts Grande to Portland and back by when? and rafted to Portland. But by 1845 Barlow built his road around Mt. JE: By late July. Hood, and they went in that way, which was faster and better for wag- I: And then by late fall, they would have ons. The only problem was early snow been able to go all the way east? that could catch them there easily because it was usually November by Contrasts in Travel Time the time they got there. for Emigrants I: Three-and-a-half days versus six JE: Yes, starting with the joining of the months. What a change! rails at Huntington. The trip west in covered wagons had fi rst taken six JE: The typical emigrant family after 1884 months; by the 1860s or ʻ70s when hired a railway boxcar, packing all there was plenty of feed available their possessions in one half and some along the way for horses and mules, it of their animals in the other half. They took about three months. Stagecoaches lived in there and looked after their went faster, but they had to change property. Three-and-a-half days later horses pretty often, so it still took they arrived in Portland and unloaded. awhile. As soon as the tracks were It wouldnʼt have been a very pleasant joined, they inaugurated the complete trip, all things considered, but it took emigrant service from either Omaha or only three-and-a-half days. Kansas City that took three-and-a-half days from there to Portland. It was I: I have relatives who made that trip in really a revolution; itʼs hard to realize the late ʻ80s. Their trip from Wiscon- today how much of a step that was--a sin to Montana took a couple of days, I little bit like landing on the moon, just think. one of those things that might get done someday. JE: It was still a sizeable savings in time and a terrifi c savings in money. They The fi rst emigrants left as early in the had to pay a little bit up front, but they year as they could. High water usually didnʼt have to starve to death part of

30 the way and risk getting trapped in Grande. Palmer didnʼt want to relocate blizzards or hurt by hostile people. his plant. You canʼt really blame him. Even if the train got stopped by a It wasnʼt until 1908 that they fi nished heavy snow in the mountains, the running the line on up to Joseph, and crews got it out pretty quickly. The trip by that time Palmer had built the mill was certainly much better than getting up Lookingglass Creek. trapped in the Sierras, like the Donner party. They couldnʼt get through and I: But the mill was ultimately built in no help was available. Elgin.

Other Branch Railroad Lines JE: Iʼm not sure about the fi rst in Elgin. in Union County By the time the railroad got to Wal- lowa, there were mills that supplied I: Letʼs talk more about branch lines, people locally. The town of Wallowa especially the one from La Grande to wasnʼt established till 1887, Enterprise Elgin and later to Joseph. a little later. The line stopped at Jo- seph, the oldest rail town in the valley. JE: They started it very shortly after they The mills generally followed the fi nished the main line through here and arrival of the railroad because there established the division point. Iʼm not was no other way to ship anything. sure exactly when they started across the valley. They went out to Island I: What about other branch lines around City [two miles northeast of La here? Wasnʼt there a branch up the Grande] and from there over to Alicel Grande Ronde River towards Ukiah? [fi ve miles northeast of Island City], where a little station was established JE: Yes, there was. That was the Mt. for the farmers to get their produce or Emily Lumber Companyʼs own rail- their grain to market, then to Imbler road that went from Hilgard to Starkey [four miles northeast of Alicel], and [approximately twenty miles southwest fi nally on into Elgin [eight miles north of La Grande]. The Starkey track was of Imbler]. That was the end of the the main one, and they had spurs all track for quite awhile. It was important over the hills where they were doing to get the line that far because the the logging. The Grande Ronde Lum- Palmer Lumber Company had a lot of ber Company [located at Perry, three holdings around Lookingglass [north miles west of La Grande], might have of Elgin] and they wanted to have used parts of the railroad line before. access to a line. This was strong They had one that ran up Five Points incentive to the Union Pacifi c to put Creek at least to Camp One. (Thereʼs a the line in. The people in Elgin had meadow up there still called Camp expected that mill would be right there, One.) and they would become a fl ourishing metropolis. They were dismayed to see There was another little branch rail- all those trainloads of logs coming road located where the wrecking yard right on through town and to La is east of La Grande, at Pierce Lane

31 and the Union highway, old US 30. In JE: Yes, and not too awfully long ago the the early 1900s it was the Hunter and old trestles across the river still ex- Fox mill, and by 1915 or ʻ20 it was isted, with no track on them, but called the Masters-Ewoldt Lumber theyʼre all gone now. Many of them Company. By the time I remember it, were on the opposite side of the river 1933 or ʻ34, it was called the Lone from where the highway is now. At Pine Lumber Company because it was the Mt. Emily Starkey camp, they had very close to where the lone pine tree, shops and quite a little company town, a local landmark, stood. The company which still exists as cabins that are still probably died during the Depression, used for summer living. and the plant burned. But that wasnʼt too much of a line. It had at least one I: The railroad probably had a Y at the logging engine that ran on their track camp to turn things around. up Ladd Canyon a few miles and on spurs up side canyons, where they cut JE: Yes, no roundhouse but there was a Y timber. and spurs that ran every which-way. The logging companies had lines of I: Might it have been narrow gauge? their own simply in order to get their product to market. JE: I think it might have been. I donʼt know. When the Grande Ronde Lumber Company moved from Perry in 1927 I: What gauge was the Mt. Emily Lum- and rebuilt at Pondosa [approximate- ber Company railroad? ly forty-fi ve miles southeast of La Grande], which was their own com- JE: It was standard gauge. pany town, they had to build a line that went from Pondosa to meet the rail- I: Iʼve seen traces of the roadbed up the road track. That was the Big Creek and canyon there. Telocaset Railway, strictly a logging operation.

Engine belonging to Masters-Ewoldt Lumber Y at Mt. Emily Lumber Camp (near Starkey), Company, operated from Lone Pine 1940s (east of La Grande), 1920s Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

32 Lee Johnsonʼs Beliefs about History* came out here to look at their property. When they did, they found they were I: As I recall, you have several other lots in the cemetery. ledgers from Lee Johnsonʼs collection. Correct? I: He could claim he wasnʼt guilty of false advertising. JE: Yes, along with many of his papers that Iʼve been sorting. They took up a JE: Absolutely not. They were buildable lot of space in his den. Some is obvi- lots, though your cellar could only be ously for discard, but there is still quite six feet deep and three feet wide. a wealth of material on forgotten sub- jects. I donʼt think that it could be La Grandeʼs Libraries replaced. Lee knew about many things that nobody knows about now and had I: I wanted to ask you about one other various kinds of documentary evidence building in town--La Grandeʼs Car- as to their nature. He was always inter- negie Library. As we speak, there ested in things that hadnʼt really been are plans for a new library in the explained historically and was always works. What was Carnegieʼs mission fascinated by interesting characters. to build libraries as it impacted a town He wasnʼt a history professor who like La Grande? believed in the broad-sweep-of-history concept in which no individual is JE: His actions infl uenced learning, refi ne- important and everything is a mass ment, and education all over the movement that nobody can be blamed country. Carnegie, like a lot of other or praised for. He didnʼt say dates people of his generation, came over donʼt matter; you have to have the date here with nothing from the old country, because thatʼs a pivotal point. Youʼve in his case Scotland. In those days men got to be able to tie an event into its could really do what Horatio Alger context. If you canʼt tie it to context, books were all about: succeed by dint itʼs worthless and the context suffers. of hard work, though Horatio Alger The standard thing he concentrated on always fudged a bit. His hero always was people who were memorable for married the bossʼs daughter. But one reason or another—magnifi cent Carnegie did it on his own merits. charlatans or those active in other Having made his fortune, he engaged ways that he thought were unusual and in some kinds of philanthropy. He may remarkable. For example, a Union have been a tough old boy, but he did County man advertised in eastern do a lot for the country. The bigger the papers lots for sale in the city of city, the bigger the library. Union has a Union for a hundred dollars. Some Carnegie Library, La Grande has one, people bought them, and some even a lot of other towns have them. They ______are pretty good buildings and served

*Editorʼs note: Lee Johnson had a long career as a their purpose very well. The problem teacher and professor of history, fi rst at La Grande High with them today is that they were not school and later at Eastern Oregon College/University. He died in 2003. designed for our time. In some cases

33 they have to be adapted so much that Geographic Changes in the itʼs better not to do it. There is a limit Grande Ronde Valley to how far you can go, especially with all the electronic capabilities we have I: What are your observations about the today. You almost have to have a new geographical changes in the Grande building, and I think thatʼs the only Ronde Valley, including vegetation? way to go. JE: Crossing the valley by car when I was I like very much the idea of what the little in the ʻ30s, what I noticed mostly new La Grande library is apparently was that the farms were smaller than going to be. The old building still has they are now, by and large, and had problems; I donʼt know what it will lots of windbreaks. It has only been be used for. One of the curses of our in the last forty years or so that you civilization is that a fl at roof is the can see miles and miles of nothing at most practical in terms of building all. The trees, brush, and fence rows materials. They should all be gabled, I have all been eliminated in order to get think, and then they wouldnʼt leak the highest yield feasible, which is quite as badly. Ours suffered because good and bad. I used to joke about somebody—with poor judgment or some fellow over by Union whose maybe ignorance—tried to improve fi eld blew away every winter, refer- the appearance by sandblasting the ring to it as our annual soil-exchange walls. That took all of the glaze off program with Umatilla County. the bricks and made them soak up water like a sponge; the water migrates I: Yes, and thatʼs still happening; every through to the inside of the building, time the soil dries out the wind blows. and that has damaged it considerably. The city has done some really good JE: Then you get a real dust storm. But things in the way of strengthening the river: it took them a long time to the structure and making it more last- turn the whole thing into a canal ing. But it was made for a different between Oro Dell [at the west edge of kind of user, having been built in La Grande] and Mt. Harris [near 1913. It has a fi replace in the west end. Imbler, on the east side of the valley]. I imagine a cheerful fi re in there on a but they got the job done.* I understand winter day would be very attractive, that it was the railroad that was respon- but the fi replace is covered up and sible for a good deal of the river may not be usable anymore. As to straightening because they wanted to what might be done with it after it avoid having their yards fl ooded. I ceases to be a library, I donʼt really imagine the city was happy about it know. because they were tired of having part of the downtown under water every time______there was a spate in spring. *Editorʼs note: This is a reference to the fact that the Grande Ronde River originally followed a circu- itous course through the valley and caused frequent fl ooding in spring until it was made into a canal.

34 I: Some of the old pictures show fl ood- the 1930s were to there and back, outs way up on Jefferson Avenue. maybe staying over a weekend. The thing I remember best about it is the JE: Thereʼs that nice picture of the Slater trees that are still there--the avenue of building that was sandbagged pretty cottonwoods along the foot of the hill heavily. The river channels in the val- where the spring ran. It was a beautiful ley, which had originally begun as avenue to walk down, which we did ditches, have reached the point where when I was a kid. Around the lake the banks are twenty feet high and the itself and from there out into the valley water is twenty or thirty feet across. for quite a ways was marshy, as it still When I was in my teens, I came with is. In that kind of country nothing a friend to hunt ducks at the lower end much but brush can grow. Iʼve forgot- of the big fi eld thatʼs just the other side ten when it was that they planted all of Rinehart [approximately three miles those willows along the highway--the south of Elgin], where the river goes willows and the Russian olives. Maybe into that pretty little rocky gorge that during the 1920s. Prior to that I doubt the highway used to go through. The if anything but brush grew out there, end of that fi eld at that time was all mostly willow and thorn. slough, now drained. Sloughs were the perfect place to hunt. There was a There were some things about vegeta- blind in there, a nice one with a wood tion that have puzzled me for a time. fl oor and a screen across the front. We One expert opinion Iʼve read tells us could sit there, have a cup of coffee, that red-topped grass, for example, is and take a whack at a duck whenever an introduced species not native to the a fl ock fl ew in. Thereʼs nothing of that area. But the fi rst pioneers through remaining today--just a big fi eld. here remarked that the red-topped grass in the valley was as high as a I: What type of vegetation was in that horseʼs belly--which makes me wonder slough area? just who introduced it. There was another opinion that, anytime you see JE: I donʼt remember anything different sagebrush, youʼre looking at over- than whatʼs there today--the same kind grazed land that the sagebrush has of brush, more of it probably, mostly moved into. This leads me to wonder if willow and alder. I recall there were it really was the cattlemen who probably more cottonwoods along the brought it in because the earliest pio- river at that time. The gorge was neers complained bitterly about the always a pretty little spot, and it hasnʼt endless miles of sagebrush. Craig changed much, though you canʼt drive Mountain [near Hot Lake, approxi- through it anymore. It would be nice if mately six miles southeast of La it could be repaved to make a little Grande] and Ramo Flat [south of scenic wayside. That part of the river Union] are all sagebrush; I imagine it has changed very little. always was sagebrush. Weʼre in semi- desert country, and thatʼs where the Trips to Hot Lake with my family in sagebrush fl ourishes. I donʼt think one

35 should assume that, when you see youʼre up above, at the top of the cliff, sagebrush, the land has been over- you can follow the trail easily. grazed by cattle I donʼt think they did much else to the I: In 1863 there werenʼt that many cattle river area there. There was always a here. nice, little spot there with cotton- woods, and that growth is still there. JE: There werenʼt any cattle around. And The slope across the river has been who brought the red-topped grass in? planted with pines more recently. Thatʼs where the juvenile-correction I: Do you recall going from La Grande center is. That area was a fl at when I out toward Hilgard before 1960, when was younger, and that is the point the freeway went in? where Stuart, in 1812, remarked about the echo in the canyon. Itʼs not JE: I can barely remember where the golf changed any so far as I can tell. course was, just above the present truck-weighing station. A motel was I: The Mt. Emily Company railroad about where the weigh station is. There came up along the river there, didnʼt was a gas station at Five Points nearby. it? By the way, professional map makers donʼt seem to know how to use apos- JE: Thatʼs right. trophes; they have dropped them from every title, and theyʼre also trying to I: I guess the old CCC [Civilian Conser- drop any s that looks like it might be a vation Corps] camp was right in there, possessive. They now call it Five Point too. Creek, but it was always Five Points Creek. Originally the highway went on JE: It was on the fl at just south of the river, the old Oregon Trail highway, up across the bridge from Hilgard Park through Hilgard, up the side of the and on the right. mountain, and came out on top before heading across to Spring Creek. By the I: So the road came out of Hilgard and time I remember the road, it had been changed so that it ran roughly where the freeway goes now.

When they put a highway and then the freeway in, they made a lot of changes at what is now Hilgard Junction, where the Starkey road takes off and where the park is. They completely removed a sizable point of land that the Oregon Trail used to get up on top. So if you Tourist facility formerly located at Five Points on the present I-84 freeway west of La Grande, use the overpass there, youʼre about ca. 1940 forty feet under the original trail. If Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

36 held to the right side of the bank until West Virginia and forgot where it was. they got farther up river? They forgot they even had it. Not too long ago they suddenly realized to JE: I wasnʼt quite sure where it went, their consternation that they had a although I remember that, when they locomotive out there somewhere! They ended the logging railroad operation, got hold of the people in Cass Valley, they pulled up the tracks. We were who had already cannibalized it for going through there one evening at parts, but they evidently found parts to dusk and stopped because one of the put back on it. They sent it out here, Shay engines was sitting there, still and it was soon in good working order. with steam up but cooling off; they had I gather that the people in Prineville been using it during the day obviously. are doing scenic tours with that engine. Thatʼs the one that survives and is now at Prineville. I saw that the other one I: Among other changes, havenʼt dams had been cut up into little pieces. played a role?

I: What year was that? JE: The Corps of Engineers has always had it in mind to dam every running JE: It seems to me it was the early 1950s. stream everywhere. Once you get The one that was saved was offered started as specialists, you want to fi rst to the city of La Grande. The continue your specialty. The Corps for response, as might be expected, was, a long time was only interested in “What would we want with something building more dams. They keep getting like that?” So the lumber company their appropriations that way. Iʼve seen ended up giving it to the Oregon a detailed map of the Northwest that Historical Society, and it sat at Oaks shows every stream with a little blue Park in Portland for quite awhile. Then line across it; the idea was to put in the Oregon Historical Society lent it to another dam where each pool ends. the Cass Valley Scenic Railway in

Shay engine formerly operated by Mt. Emily Lumber Company in Starkey-Hilgard area, west of La Grande, 1930s Photo courtesy of John Turner and Richard Hermens

37 I remember a fellow who was here The Corps also wanted to put one at a representing the Corps, checking out wide meadow near the Grande Ronde the proposed reservoir on Catherine River beyond Hilgard. Thereʼs a farm- Creek, just above the park [approxi- house there, and the National Guard mately twenty miles east of Union]. I has a shooting range at the far end of went with him. He wanted to know it. They thought it would be a wonder- about any pioneer or other structures ful idea because of all the boating that that might be there. I pointed out some could be there, close by and handy, but cabins in the area and said it seemed a again I didnʼt really see that would do real shame to fl ood a beautiful mead- any good. If we have a really bad year, ow like that for no other reason than the dams are not much good for fl ood to provide trash fi sh for people who control because the pools will be full like to fl oat in boats. He said, “Well, it and run over anyway. would help with fl oods.” I said, “I donʼt think the fl oods are probably I: One of them, the dam at Perry, when serious enough to warrant the kind of the sawmill was there, broke loose and expenditure in tax dollars that youʼd be water took out quite a few buildings at looking at.” But, of course, my opinion Oro Dell near the mouth of the canyon. wouldnʼt mean anything to him. It was just a chance to say something. I cer- JE: The dams for that kind of operation are tainly wasnʼt aggressive towards him; usually not intended to be permanent, he was a nice guy, doing a careful job, so they arenʼt quite as strong as a taking pictures. The fortunate thing permanent structure would be. from my point of view--a selfi sh one-- is that the Indians complained that it I: The coming of the railroad, as it did it was a place where they had camped to so many places in the West, cer- and fi shed in the past and they didnʼt tainly changed the geography, too, want to see a dam put in there. Their didnʼt it? word carried a lot more weight than mine would these days. It seemed to JE: Yes, it did. In the 1860s the old road me dreadful to put a dam in there. coming down Ladd Hill, which was extremely diffi cult to come down and I think some of the farmers thought even worse to get back up, became a that dam would be handicap for people living in Union, helpful; Iʼm not sure just why. I wrote which started in 1862, a few months a letter to the paper suggesting that we after La Grande. Union was, in a should set our sights a little higher and sense, better located. In 1864, Jim not be such pikers. We should put a Pyle laid out his road up what is now dam three hundred feet high between called Pyleʼs Canyon [east of Ladd Pumpkin Ridge [at the north end of the Canyon]. That was a much easier route valley] and Mt. Harris; that way we even though it was knee-deep or even could sell the beach front property in chin-deep in some places in the spring Cove for high prices and give excur- --still a better road by far. sions.

38 There is a notice in one of the 1868 ing through, the city fathers in Union newspapers calling for volunteer labor, were approached by the surveyor; for a people from La Grande wanted as vol- little consideration he would locate unteers to put a better road up Ladd the railroad through Union. The princi- Hill. La Grande was losing out on a lot pal banker, Mr. Eaton, said, “This is a of trade because of poor access to the shakedown. We donʼt need to do this. community. So that was done, and I Youʼre gonna have to come through think it helped matters to some extent. here anyway.” The surveyor said, “Fine” and ran it up the other side of Union, in the 1870s, was pretty much a the valley so that Union didnʼt have rival for La Grande and had also be- access to the railroad after all. They come the county seat in the election. had to put in Union Junction and then People in the Halfway-Richland area, build a short line railroad into the town which was in the strip of land that of Union. That handicapped Unionʼs hadnʼt been taken from Baker County, later development. Sometimes these already had fi fty miles to go to get to errors that are not seen clearly at the Union, and they didnʼt want to go time can cause unfortunate changes in another fi fteen to get to La Grande. years ahead. Cove sided with Union. So Union got the county seat and retained it until I: Foresight is not always automatic in 1904. these cases, is it?

It bothered La Grande people a little JE: Hindsight is usually at least two-thirds that the business center was in Union. regret. However, when the railroad was com-

39 40 Appendix

Partial Bibliography of Jack Evansʼs Publications

Books

Powerful Rockey: The Blue Mountains and the Oregon Trail. La Grande OR: Eastern Oregon College, 1990. 374 pp., illustrations, notes, maps, index. History of travel from Farewell Bend to the Umatilla River, 1811-1884, including the people and the routes they followed.

Articles and essays on regional history

“Informing a Region: the Newspapers of Union and Wallowa Counties [Oregon],” published in the La Grande Observer (special historical section), 1996. History of all newspapers published in the two-county region, 1868-1996.

“The Oregon Frontier,” essay published in the , Pendleton OR, September 16, 1992 (special section on the Oregon Trail). Brief history based on Powerful Rockey with some additions (2500 words).

“Chief Looking Glass,” essay produced as a pamphlet by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for dedica- tion of the Lookingglass Fish Hatchery, June 18, 1988. Biographical and historical sketch of Apash Wayakaikt, Nez Perce chief--Old Chief Looking Glass (1500 words).

Other

Numerous brief articles in various special interest publications related to tools, hardware, fi rearms, and history of technology.

Book reviews for Magillʼs Literary Annual, Oregon Historical Quarterly, and other publications.

41 42 Index

Symbols buildings 1861, white settlers arriving in 3 ireproof 12 frame 8 4th Street 10, 13, 15 metal-front 12 A Bushnell, Nettie 8 Adams Avenue 8, 9, 13, 27 C agriculture 4 California 1 in Union County 3 campground, emigrantsʼ 5 alcohol 26 Camp One 32 alder 35 Carnegie, Andrew 33 Alger, Horatio 33 Carperʼs business school 12 Alicel OR 31 Cass Valley Scenic Railway 37 alkanet root 26 Catherine Creek 38 architects 9, 10 cattle 4 Arizona 1 Cayuse Tribal Nation 2-4, 23 Arnold, Green 13 changes, geographical, in Grande Ronde Valley 34 arsenic 26 Chaplin, Daniel 5, 7, 28 Ashby, H.N. 1 Cherokee tribe 4 Auburn OR 3 Chinese man 23 B Civilian Conservation Corps 37 classical design 11 Bacon, Dr. 27 Coggan, George 21 Baker, K.G. 21 Colonial Revival style 16, 18, 19 Baker, Lafeyette C. 26 colonnades 12 Baker City OR 3, 11, 22, 30 columns Baptist Church 10 Corinthian 16 30 Doric 16 bay window 12 Ionic 16 Bennes, John 27 components, building (interchangeableness) 12 Big Creek and Telocaset Railway 33 confederated tribes 2 Blue Mountains 7, 30 Conkey, Charles & Mrs. 16, 17 Blue Mountain construction Hotel 9 balloon-frame 14 House (hotel) 6 single-wall 20 University 6 Copi-Copi, meaning of 3 Blue Mountain Times 21 cornice 12,13 Bohnenkamp, W.H. 18, 19 Corps of Engineers 37, 38 Boise Cascade Lumber Company 19 Court Avenue 14 Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company 1 courthouse 1 brackets 12 Craig Mountain 36 branch lines, railroad 28 D brickmaking yard, La Grandeʼs 20, 21 brick buildings, La Grandeʼs 8 Deal, Robert 20 Brooksʼ clothing store 8 Deal Canyon 20 brothel 13 depot, La Grandeʼs fi rst 29 Brown, Ben 5 Depot Street 8, 9, 13 brush 4,34,35 Depression 27, 32 Buffalo Bill Cody 23 Dodson, suburb of Kansas City 1

43 Douglas, David 2, 3 Geddes, Bill 11 drugstores 9, 10, 25, 26 Geiser Grand Hotel 11 drunkenness, arrests for 23 general store 1 gold rush 3 E Gothic style 16, 17 Eastern Oregon College, fi rst use of name 12 government road 7 Eastern Oregon Normal School 27 grain elevator 9 Eastern Oregon University 27 Grande Ronde Battle of 4 Eastlake, Charles 16, 17 Canyon 5 Eccles, David 1 Hospital, former 26 Edwardian style 16 Valley 2-4, 7, 34 elevator, grain 8 Granite OR 25 Elgin OR 3, 24, 28, 31, 35 grass, red-topped 35, 36 Elks Lodge 9 Grass Man, David Douglas as 3 Elm Street 9 Great Northern Railway Company 29 emigrants, Oregon Trail 2, 3, 7 Greek Revival style 16 English language 2 Enterprise OR 1, 2, 24, 31 H Episcopal Church (fi rst) 6 evidence, documentary 33 Hilgard Junction OR 36 expedition, food-gathering 4 Hilgard OR 28, 31, 36-38 history, dark chapter in 4 F hospitals, La Grandeʼs 26 Hot Lake sanitarium 27, 35, 36 farms, size of 34 house, researching history of 15 father, Jack Evansʼs 1 housing, prestigious 13 Federal design style 19 Hudsonʼs Bay Company 2 fence rows 34 Hulsey and Mahafee drugstore 25 fi re, in La Grande 8, 9, 12, 14, 27, 34 Hunter and Fox mill 32 fi restop 14 Huntington OR 30 fi rst settlement, La Grandeʼs 5 Fir Steet 9 I Five Points OR 32, 36 fl oods 38 I-84 (freeway) 7, 36 Flora OR 24 Imbler OR 31, 34 fl our mills 1 Imperial Cafe 13 Foley Hotel 11 Indians, trading with 3 Fort Walla Walla 2 interest in history 1 Foster, Fred 7 Island City Mercantile and Milling Company 1 Fox, Charles 20 Island City OR 1, 31 Fox Hill 20 Italianate design 11 French language 2 friezes 12 J furniture, style of 17 Jefferson Avenue 11-14, 35 fur Jensen family 21 brigades 2 Johnson, Lee 27, 33 traders 2 Joseph OR 25, 29, 31 journal, David Douglasʼs 3 G journalist, yellow 22 gauge narrow 32 K standard 32 Kamela OR 28

44 Kansas City KS 1, 30 Morris, Robert 16 Mt. Emily Lumber Company 19, 37 L Mt. Harris 34, 38 Mullan Trail 2 Ladd Canyon 32 Myers, F.L. 15 land claim 5 laudanum 25, 26 N Lawrenceʼs Jewelry 11 La Grandeʼs Old Town, photo of 6 National Register of Historic Buildings 11 La Grande Native American population 2 combining of two parts 13 Newlin, Ferdinand 25 Lumber Company 9 newspapers National Bank (aka First National) 9, 15 daily & weekly 23 La Grande OR 1, 3-15, 19-37, 39, 40 Union County 21 LDS 10 New Mexico 1 ledger, old 27, 28 New Town, La Grandeʼs 6-8, 13 Lester Real Estate house 8, 15 Nez Perce Tribe 2, 22, 40 Library, La Grandeʼs Carnegie 33 Nibley, Charles 1 logwood extract 26 Nibley-Mimnaugh Lumber Company 1 Lone Pine Lumber Company 32 North Powder OR 7 lone pine tree 32 Long Branch cafe 13 O Lookingglass Creek OR 31, 40 oak, golden 17 Lostine OR 24 Observer building, old, photo of 23 Los Angeles CA 1 Ochoco country 4 Odd Fellows building (fi rst) 6 M Ogden, Peter Skene 2 Mack and Sons 11 old houses, La Grandeʼs 8, 14 Main Avenue 13, 15 old town, La Grandeʼs 5 mansions, La Grandeʼs 19 Oliver, Emery 21 Masters-Ewoldt Lumber Company (aka Lone Pine Omaha NE 30 Lumber Co.) 32 opium 26 materials, building 20 Oregon Historical Society 37 McComas, E.S. 21-23, 25 Oregon Railway and Navigation Company 29 Meacham, Harvey 7 Oregon Short Line 30 Meacham Brothers 5, 7 Oregon Trail 1, 3, 5, 7, 36, 40 Meacham OR 5, 7, 28 oriel 12,13 mercuric chloride 26 Oro Dell OR 7, 20, 34, 38 Mergenthalerʼs machines 24 oxen 5 Mesker Brothers 12, 13 Mesker Brothersʼ Metal Fronts 12 P Methodist Church 6, 8 Pacifi c Company 9 midwives 27 Palmer, Joseph 25 Miller, Charles 19 Palmer Lumber Company 31 Millerʼs Home Center 9 paper, acid-based 24 Mill Creek 5 parapets 12 mining 4 paregoric 26 in Baker City 3 parents, Jack Evansʼs 1 Moats family 16 Park Avenue 13 Moliter, Dr. 8 pediment 13 Montana 2 Pendleton OR 13, 21, 40 Morgan Lake 7 Perry OR 31, 33, 38 Mormon Tabernacle 10 philanthropy 34

45 Phoenix Building (aka Rogers Block) 9 Sommerville, Alexander 21 pioneers 1, 4 Sommer Place of Cottonwoods 3 Hotel 11 plinths 12 house 8 plot, for attack on settlers 4 Spanish fl u 1 Pondosa OR 33 Spout Springs 3 Portland OR 7, 9, 16, 27, 30, 37 Spring Creek 36 Pre-Raphaelites 16 Spring Street 8 Prineville OR 37 St. Louis MO 12 professor, history 33 stagecoaches 30 Pumpkin Ridge 38 stage road 7 Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 25 Stange Pyle, Jim 39 August & family 19, 20 Pyleʼs Canyon 39 house 19 spelling of name 19 Q Starkey OR 31, 32, 36, 37 Steele, R.M. 28 Queen Anne style 11 Steincamp, E.D. 25 R Steward Block 9 stock, herding of 7 railroad street naming, in La Grande 13 transcontinental 7 style, architectural 11 depot 8 Summerville Annotator 24 Ralston building 11 Summerville OR 4, 21, 24 Ramo Flat 36 surveyor, railroad 39 Register of Public Lands 22, 25 Renaissance Revival style 16 T Richardson, Dr. 27 “The Castle” 18 Riveria School 13 Table Mountain 5 Riverside Park 4 The Dalles OR 22 Rogers building 9, 11 The Mountain Sentinel (aka The Sentinel) 21 Romanesque Revival style 11 The Observer 23 Rosetti 16 building 10 Russian olive trees 35 The Sentinel 22 The Wallowa News (aka The Wallowa Sun) 24 S Thornton, Calvin 9-12, 16 sagebrush 35,36 ties, railroad 3, 28, 29 Salem OR 13, 14, 21 timber 4 Sanborn fi re insurance atlases 12 tinsmith shop 5 sawmills 1, 20, 28, 29, 31, 38 toll road 5, 7 Shay engine 37 town, laying out of 1 Slater traders, Native Americans as 2 Building 11-13 trappers 2 James D. 13 tuberculosis 1 James H. 13 turrets 11 Robert 13 U sloughs 35 Snakes Tribe 2 Umatilla County OR 34 Snake River 22 Umatilla Tribe 2 Sommer Union County OR 2,21,28,31 Aaron 8, 9, 20 Union OR 2, 3, 7, 21, 22, 28, 29, 31-34, 36, 38-40 Daniel 21 Union Pacifi c Railroad Company 29, 31

46 Walnut Street 13 Washington Avenue 9, 23 Valley of Peace 4 Weiser ID 2, 10 Van Pettenʼs lumber yard 9 Wenaha Lumber Company 9 veranda 16 West Jacobson building 13 Victorian style 16 Whirlwind Remedies 23 Villard, Henry 29 Wilkinsonʼs Mill 6 willow 35 W Whirlwind, Chief 23 wagon trains 5,13 windbreaks 34 Walla Walla windows, Palladian 18 River 2 wooden town, La Grande as 8 Tribe 2 World War I 1 WA (city of) 4 Wallowa Y County 1, 22, 24 Y (railroad) 32 OR (town of) 1

47