East Oregonian Days Gone By

Published 6:00 am Sunday, July 13, 2025

25 years ago this week — 2000

Unwilling to wait years for new technologies to dispose of leaky chemical weapons, the state Environmental Quality Commission won’t revoke the Army’s permits for an incinerator to destroy deadly stockpiles at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

“The alternative technologies in our view are many years in the future on this scale,” commission chair Melinda Eden said Thursday.

“According to the law, our job at the time we made the decision to grant permits was to determine the best available technology at that time.” Assembled in Tillamook for its monthly meeting, the commission was set to vote Friday to formally deny a petition from incinerator opponents to revoke the permits, issued in 1997 for hazardous waste disposal and air filters.

Karyn Jones of the group GASP said she was disappointed the commission would not revoke the permits, but she remained optimistic that pending court challenges to the incinerator would ultimately shut it down, especially in light of the May 8 release of a tiny amount of nerve agent at a similar incinerator in Tooele, Utah.

“We are far from done,” she said.

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PENDLETON — The Klamath River enters the Pacific Ocean in the shadow of towering

redwoods on California’s northern coast.

It is where the mountains reach the sea. Where the mist hovers for days, shrouding the land. It is the place of Nadine Van Mechelen’s youth, and it still inspires her work as a doll maker.

Her creations of Indian warriors and princesses are prized items among collectors of Native American art.

One of her most popular dolls is Requa Varrior.

​​”Requa is a little village at the mouth of the Klamath River where my mother was born,” she says.

Van Mechelen is a Yurok Indian, but has lived on the Umatilla Indian Reservation for more than 30 years.

It was her mother who encouraged her to become a doll maker 14 years ago.

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PENDLETON — Explosive growth in the Internet service provider market has translated into a huge success story for a small player on the World Wide Web.

Oregon Trail Internet, a Pendleton-based Internet service provider with more than 6,000 customers in Eastern and Central Oregon, has experienced a 75 percent growth rate each year for the past three years. That rate is expected to continue well into 2001.

OTI started in January 1996 as a two-man operation serving customers in the Pendleton area. Today it employs 14 full-time technical and office workers and 16 field representatives in 72 communities and 14 counties from Bend to Walla Walla.

“And we expect to be serving 100 communities in 17 counties by the end of the year,” said Tim Sharrard, chief operations officer.

Over the next five years, Sharrard expects OTI to expand its Internet dial-up and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service throughout Oregon, Washington and Idaho, serving more than 1,000 communities with nearly 250,000 dial-up users and some 30,000 DSL account users.

50 years ago this week — 1975

No July 1975

100 years ago this week — 1925

If there are any farmers in this district who have horses afflicted with the so called “walking disease,” Dr C. W. Lassen would like to be notified of the case so that the horse can be taken to Portland next week for a clinic that will be conducted there on the disease when the 62nd annual convention of the American Veterinary Medical association is held from July 21 to 24.

This is the first time the association has ever come this far west for a national convention, and efforts to make the program a memorable one are being made by members of the profession in Oregon.

Dr. John R. Mohler, chief of the bureau of animal industry at Washington, D. C., will be one of the principal speakers. Dr. George R. Hilton, head of the health of animals branch of the

Canadian department of agriculture, will be another noted visitor. Dr. J. G. Hardenbergh, veterinarian at the Mayo brothers’ clinic in Minneapolis, is coming to Portland, and Dr. Maurice C. Hall, who, as head of the zoology department of the bureau of animal industry discovered a new cure for hookworm, will be at the convention or send one of his first assistants.

Dr. Sims and Dr. F. W. Miller, another member of the staff of Oregon Agricultural college, will speak on “Practical, Results of Attempts to Control Abortion Disease.” “Salmon Poisoning in

Dogs” is the subject of a paper by Dr. C. R. Donham. “Poultry Diseases” will be discussed by Dr. W. T. Johnson.

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Wheat harvesting is now getting under way in practically all parts of the country, according to reports that are being received from farmers. In the west end operations started on some ranches about two weeks ago, though many farmers had barley to thresh and did not get into wheat until a week or 10 days ago.

This week has seen operations launched north and east of Pendleton, and additional outfits are getting into the grain with the passing of every day. S. R. Thompson started yesterday. L. L. Rogers planned to get under way either this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest, and other farmers on the reservation are all prepared to begin harvesting. The winter wheat fields are chiefly the ones that are being harvested north and east of Pendleton.

Nearly all reports agree that the crop is shorter than farmers had anticipated, but the yields will be fairly satisfactory. From a number of sources the information has come that the so called lighter land areas were damaged less in proportion than the reservation and by the hot wave the latter part of June. The season advanced for this apparent condition is that the lighter land crop was further advanced when the weather changed than the reservation crop.

An average of between 15 to 20 bushels is indicated by the reports that come from the west and the south part of the county with some individual yields reported a little higher and other less than 15 bushels.

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All the residents of Pendleton and buckaroos from ranches far and wide as well as cowgirls have been invited and will be expected to be present to welcome Edward Sedgwick, director, and the members of the company of motion picture of the Universal Pictures corporation when they arrive in Pendleton Monday morning on train No. 17.

Final plans for the greeting of the visitors were drawn Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock when a meeting of the committee of 12, headed by Roy Raley, was held in the rooms of the Pendleton Commercial Association.

Mayor Fee will be on hand to extend his welcome on behalf of the city when the motion picture folk detrain, and President Johns of the Commercial association will join in the greeting on behalf of the business interests of the city. Other officials and notables have been invited to be present, and if 80 per cent of the residents of the city are not on hand members of the committee declared they will consider the official welcoming of the motion picture a failure.

Business will be suspended for an hour while the visitors get officially started into living here. Laundry whistles will start blowing 15 minutes before the train is due and stores will then begin to close. After the visitors arrive and have been greeted-and there will be no official talks in this greeting — a parade will be held.

Everyone has been requested to appear in Round-Up regalia for. the event. The line of march of the parade will be from the depot north on Main street to Court, east to the Domestic laundry, then back on Court to Main and thence to Hotel Pendleton.