Wednesday, July 3, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 23 Historic ranch on quilt garden tour By Sue Stafford Correspondent A historic treasure south- west of Sisters will be a stop on the Quilts in the Garden Tour on July 11, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., sponsored by the Sisters Garden Club. The Black Diamond Ranch began as the 160- acre homestead of Prentiss and Lula Van Tassel in 1902. They raised their six children on the homestead, which had 1903 water rights out of then Squaw Creek (Whychus) through the Plainview Ditch. Allen Harrington bought the ranch in 1935 from the Federal Land Bank, which was created in 1916 to provide low-cost credit to farmers, ranchers, and rural America. In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, many farmers defaulted on their loans. Speculation would say that Van Tassel lost the farm to the bank and Harrington then purchased it. Allen shared the ranch with his father, Mel Harrington. They added to their holdings in 1948 when they purchased 160 adjoining acres in 1948 from Jesse South. That same year, Allen9s brother Ray bought out Allen. Ray and his wife, Gladys, moved to the ranch with their two children Mike and Darlene, who grew up on the ranch. Ray farmed with his father, Mel, until Mel retired in 1955 and Ray bought his father9s half interest. Ray raised 225 tons of hay annually. He had a five-month grazing permit on Brooks Scanlon land for 90 ABBENHUIS: Public Works employee is departing Continued from page 4 tours for a total of 33 days, one all Dutch. Then she9ll come north to take Orry to Eugene for school, and get her belongings out of storage. At this point in time, she plans to live in Summerlin, a master- planned development outside of Las Vegas, near Red Rock Canyon. She said given the nature of Las Vegas with their hotels, airlines, tourists, and conven- tion center, jobs for people with multilingual skills are plentiful.