100 years ago — 1922

Pendleton Mayor George Hartman is generally given credit for being a versatile man, and to his other accomplishments he has added the distinction of having opened the doors of the vault in the basement of city hall. By so doing he has put himself in a position to “kid” Judge Thomas Fitz Gerald, who has been trying to get that old vault lock unfastened off and on for years. It was in 1914 when the doors were last opened. The combination had been kept, even though manipulation of the lock invariably failed to secure entrance to the vault. This morning the mayor after working carefully for a few minutes was amazed when the combination worked. Among the papers brought to light are the record of the old Eureka lodge. Judge Fitz Gerald informally sought the aid of a good lock man to open the vault last summer, but it remained for the mayor to prove the needed expert.

50 years ago — 1972

Six Umatilla County sheriff’s deputies encountered a crowd so belligerent at a teen-age beer party about midnight last Friday that they refrained from making any arrests. “It was the wildest crowd I’ve ever seen,” said Deputy Vance Baltrusch, who led the deputies. “We took the beer and told them to break up the party.” Baltrusch said he feared arrests would precipitate a riot. He and the other deputies estimated that 100 youths were at the party at a ranch home north of Pendleton. “The deputies broke it up before anyone got hurt and that’s the important thing,” said Chief Deputy William McPherson. He said an investigation is under way into the source of the 15-gallon keg of beer the deputies confiscated.

25 years ago — 1997

The Umatilla Vikings came back from a halftime deficit and beat the Santiam Christian Eagles to win the state title of the OSAA-U.S. Bank Class 2A Boys Basketball Championship Saturday night. The 59-54 victory earned Umatilla its first ever Class 2A state boys basketball title. The Eagles led 16-10 after the first period, and increased the lead to nine points early in the second quarter before the Vikings rallied to within two points at the break. “We’re a second-half team,” said Lee Lafferty, who led all scorers with 21 points on 50 percent shooting from the field. He was 4-of-6 from 3-point land. “It’s hard to explain,” Troy Johnson said of yet another second-half comeback. “It’s like we use the first and second quarters to get warmed up and then we use the second half to kick butt.”