Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
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Multi-media exhibit now on display Canoes EUGENE: “McKenzie River Stories” is an interactive multi-media exhibit now on display at the Lane County Historical Museum. The goal of the exhibit is to draw residents of the greater Eugene area into a closer relationship with their only water source, the McKenzie River, with the end goal of promoting stewardship of this unique and beautiful river. The exhibit showcases the work of the River Stories team – a group of undergraduates participating in the Environmental Leadership Program at the Uni...
Listen to the River...
Hitler salute By Finn J.D. John (Editor’s note: This is one of three articles about this event.) Around midsummer in 1970, Ed Westerdahl finally agreed to talk to the two scruffy hippies who’d been politely pestering him for the previous week. The hippies — Robert Wehe and Glen Swift — had come to Salem from Portland in an old Opel Kadett. They wanted to talk to the governor, Tom McCall, and Westerdahl was McCall’s chief of staff. Westerdahl had initially blown them off, hoping they’d give up and go away, but they’d shown no sign o...
Tom McCall By Finn J.D. John Governor Tom McCall was in a tight spot. Twenty-five thousand American Legion members were a month away from descending on Portland for their national convention, and President Richard Nixon had promised to be there. A particularly belligerent group of anti-war radicals had pledged to turn out in force, 50,000 strong, to “confront” them. The F.B.I. had issued warnings that almost seemed panicky, confirming that tens of thousands of angry protesters could be expected. All it would take would be one liquored-up Leg...
Oyster dredging By Finn J.D. John Like most tourist-friendly destinations on the Oregon Coast, the town of Newport is well stocked with kitschy pirate gear. Unlike most other spots, though, Newport has a real history involving pirates — specifically, oyster pirates. Most people who have heard of oyster piracy think of the stories of Jack London’s youth, when he borrowed money to buy a small sloop and went into the “business” down in San Francisco Bay. Or they may think of the long and occasionally bloody struggles between oystermen and o...
Pioneer Square By Finn J.D. John In January of 1969, the owners of Meier and Frank Department Stores in Portland had a problem. Business at their legendary department store, located smack in the middle of downtown Portland, was starting to slow down, even as sales galloped ahead at their Lloyd Center store. They were pretty sure they knew what was holding the downtown location back: Parking. Fortunately, a solution was right at hand. All they needed to do was demolish the grimy, low-slung double-deck parking lot next to their store and replace...
NASA astronaut By Finn J.D. John Sometime in the late 1990s, Scott Leavengood of Oregon State University’s Forestry Extension Service got a strange phone call from Michael Simons of Phoenix, Arizona. “I heard there was a moon tree planted at the College of Forestry,” Simons said. “Is it still there? Can I get cuttings from it?” Leavengood had no idea what he was talking about. Moon tree? What was that? Trees In Space The Moon Trees story starts with a young Forest Service employee named Stuart Roosa. Roosa was a “smokejumper” — a wildland...
Japanese ship By Finn J.D. John On November 3, 1832, the 50-foot Japanese cargo vessel Hojun Maru left Ise Bay bound for Edo — the city now known as Tokyo. Its hold was full of rice and porcelain dishes from the south end of the Japanese archipelago, to be traded for salt fish from the north. One of the youngest members of the Hojun Maru’s 14-man crew was a 14-year-old boy named Otokichi, a cook’s apprentice Otokichi and his shipmates couldn’t know it, but when they stepped aboard at Ise Bay, they were leaving their homeland forev...
From the May 16, 2001 edition of McKenzie River Reflections Vandalism in church BLUE RIVER: Destruction, not theft, was on the mind of whoever broke into the Assembly of God Church last Thursday night. Rocks were used to smash two windows. A vehicle was driven up the front ramp, rammed through both front doors and run along an interior hallway. Once inside the building more damage was done. Office machines, including a computer, telephone and calculator were cut away from their cords and dumped in the trash. The altar was destroyed, a cross...
Schooner By Finn J.D. John It was early afternoon on a sunny October day in 1883, and a group of Astorians were standing on the shore watching a small, trim schooner sailing toward them. They’d been watching it all day, and by now they were a little worried. The boat was the J.C. Cousins, one of the two pilot boats based out of Astoria. On the morning of the day before it had cast off from the dock and sailed out to sea to await incoming ships — to offer them its professional assistance in crossing the Columbia River bar, the t...
Burnside drugstore By Finn J.D. John On December 7, 1934, Ben Votruba left his room at the Bridge Hotel, a run-down flophouse on the corner of Union and Burnside, and made his way across the Burnside Bridge to the Pioneer Drugstore on the other side of the river. Ben was, essentially, a washed-up alcoholic. Although still relatively young in years — he was 46 — those years had seen some hard living. His long-term drinking problem had taken him to rock bottom and instead of bouncing back, he’d stayed there, doing whatever he had t...
From the May 9, 2001 edition of McKenzie River Reflections Blackhawk helicopter WALTERVILLE: A black helicopter made repeated runs over the McKenzie River last Saturday, drawing a crowd to find out what was going on west of Hendricks Wayside Park. What they saw was a training exercise involving crews from McKenzie Fire & Rescue and the Army National Guard’s 1042 unit. During the exercise the Blackhawk chopper was called in to assist ground crews staged near a simulated victim on a log jam. First two medics were lowered from the air. After a s...
Blackhawk helicopter...
Cayuse horsemen By Finn J.D. John Joe Crabb was a gambling man - that much, at least, we know. And in 1871, he’d put his money down on an absolute ironclad sure thing. It was a horse race, and Crabb was a horseman. He was matching his own best animal, a magnificent thoroughbred, against a smallish spotted pony belonging to Howlish Wampoo, the chief of the Cayuse Indian tribe. The race was a big event in the Pendleton area, and everyone had turned out to watch it - shopkeepers and cowboys from the town as well as people from the Walla Walla, N...
From the March 14, 2001 edition of McKenzie River Reflections As a state highway crew worker, Brad Bigelow has cleaned up his share of road kill. Over the years there’s been quite a smorgasbord - from elk to deer, raccoons to dogs, cats to squirrels and even opossums. Last Saturday morning he got his first call to pick up a dead cow. Shortly after, he was notified to pick up another, then another. According to the Oregon State Police, in all, four cows fell out the back of a westbound semi along a 30 mile stretch of Hwy. 126. Only one s...
The Springfield/McKenzie Gateway Arch Project East and west views of the proposed Arch The concept of building a physical embodiment of Springfield’s “Gateway” tagline began to simmer in 2010. The idea was based upon a 1920’s era project that put the city “on the map” when the Springfield Ladies Civic Club mounted a successful fundraising drive that resulted in the construction of the first Gateway Arch, near Glenwood. Although that structure was unfortunately lost to floodwaters only seven years later, a look at historic photos of that arch s...
Following three years of feasibility analysis, research and meetings with public officials, the Friends of the Springfield Arch has been formed to chart a plan for rebuilding the Springfield Gateway Arch. The group agrees that a strategy focused on introducing visitors to attractions in the areas to the east and to the west of the arch’s portal should be developed. Such a strategy would build upon the strong cross-marketing approach that has long been a part of the relationships between the city of Springfield and the McKenzie River c...
Ladies Civic Club Back in the 1920's, the Springfield Ladies Civic Club made their dreams a reality. Sunken Arch The original Arch was located in South Springfield, which is now Glenwood. It stood for seven years prior to succumbing to flood wasters in 1927. Nearby businesses and homes were also victims of the flood. Old Arch location The original Arch appears to have been located a couple hundred of yards south of the existing Glenwood/Springfield bridge....
Model Arch construction In the interim the committee moved forward with a project to produce a scale model of the arch to heighten public knowledge of our plans. The model will be displayed at several area festivals and public venues where people can make direct contributions to help fund studies to determine the feasibility of constructing the full size Springfield Gateway Arch....
Fund thermometer People interested in seeing the Arch reconstructed in Springfield contributed to an online fundraising project launched in June of 2013. The money they contributed was used to construct the scale model. To learn more about the project on Kickstarter click here. Currently, the Friends of the Springfield Arch is a non-profit corporation recognized by the state of Oregon. An application with the IRS for 501(c)3 status is in process. Contributions can be sent to: Friends of the Springfield Arch, POB 506, Walterville, OR...
FAX: 541-663-4550 Tom Lincoln: [email protected] Ken Engelman: [email protected]...
From the February 14, 2001 edition of McKenzie River Reflections Blue River Tavern fire BLUE RIVER: A charred pile of debris and plastic “Caution” tape apparently aren’t what Lane County had in mind for cleanup efforts following last December’s fiery destruction of the Blue River Tavern. By not erecting a fence and promptly hauling away the remains, tavern owner Peter Metoxen is now at odds with the county’s nuisance ordinances. As of Monday, the county finalized an abatement order authorizing crews from the Public Works Dept. to clean up the s...
BPA towers By Finn J.D. John On a sunny late afternoon, in a remote woodsy area near the base of Mount Hood, five fiery explosions rattled windowpanes in a few farmhouses along Highway 26 near the community of Brightwood. It was immediately clear what the coordinated blasts had been: an attempt to take down the power grid. The explosive charges had been set at the bases of five of the giant steel towers that carry high-voltage electricity generated at Bonneville and other dams on the Columbia River. When the smoke cleared, three of the...
Dave Helfrich EUGENE: Life was a little different over 100 years ago when settlers moved in to start a life on the McKenzie River. Making a move from Prineville, the Helfrich family put down roots and played a key role in developing tourism as a big part of the local economy. Things were different back then. There was no running water, no electricity and no insulation in their house when the Helfrich family bought 160 acres on a mile and a half of river frontage in 1902. The land - stretching from the old Stockade up to Cook’s Ranch (near M...
