FROM PAGE ONE
A6 — THE OBSERVER
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
STAIRCASE
“We were overjoyed. This is a gift to
future generations, to La Grande and
to Oregon. We’re beyond excited and
we’re so grateful to EOU for all the work
they’ve put into it.”
Continued from Page A1
of Historic Places.
Many around the com-
munity share fond memo-
ries of the staircase, from
growing up down the street
to taking wedding photos
on the scenic lookout.
Among them are Anne
Olson and Marcia Loney.
The sisters grew up
down the street from the
stairs and were enchanted
with its grandeur, as both
attended kindergarten at
the Ackerman Lab School
on campus and Olson later
enrolled at Eastern for col-
lege. Decades later as the
structure began to crumble,
vandalism on the crumbling
stairs in 2013 was the fi nal
straw as the duo decided
to fi ght for the staircase’s
future.
“I just remember being
really struck by that,”
Olson said. “I think that’s
been a big issue all along.
Here’s this incredible archi-
tectural treasure, but it’s in
Eastern Oregon and at the
end of a street that’s not
used as much any more. It’s
a hidden treasure.”
The sisters voiced a
shared concern among
alumni and community
members, aligning with
offi cials at Eastern to seek
funding to restore the
staircase.
“Anne’s and my memo-
ries are shared by genera-
tions and generations of kids
and adults,” Loney said.
The Grand Staircase rep-
resented a symbolic con-
nection between the town
and the local university,
creating a bridge for stu-
dents and community mem-
bers to be a part of the
campus.
The staircase also phys-
ically links the university
to the community, allowing
pedestrians easy access to
and from the campus.
“It was a very symbolic,
meaningful thing for many
years,” Seydel said. “That
changed with deterioration
of the staircase to the point
where we couldn’t use it.”
Pushing for funding
Local advocates worked
— Marcia Loney, of La Grande
The Observer, File
Eastern Oregon University’s Grand Staircase, which was built in 1929 — the same year the university was
founded — doesn’t look very grand in this 2016 photo. After years of being on Restore Oregon’s list of
endangered places in Oregon, the university received funding to rebuild the historic feature, with work
slated to begin in 2023.
closer and closer to fi nan-
cial backing over the last
decade, with the funding
being close to consideration
in state legislative sessions
in the last several years.
“We were painfully close
to getting it funded and
trying to fi x this incred-
ible piece of architecture,”
Seydel said. “Finally, we
were able to push it over the
fi nish line so to speak.”
In a groundbreaking
decision, House Bill 5202
designated tens of millions
of dollars for statewide proj-
ects, $4 million of which is
allotted to restoring EOU’s
Grand Staircase.
“I seriously think it
took us a few days to actu-
ally believe it,” Loney said.
“We were overjoyed. This
is a gift to future gener-
ations, to La Grande and
to Oregon. We’re beyond
excited and we’re so
grateful to EOU for all the
work they’ve put into it.”
Lasting connection
Bob Bull photo collection
Workers stop for a photograph during the construction of the Grand Staircase at Eastern Oregon Normal
School — now Eastern Oregon University — in the 1920s. The university learned in March 2022 it will
receive $4 million to restore the historic staircase.
with the city of La Grande,
Main Street Downtown,
Union County Chamber of
Commerce, Eastern Oregon
Visitor’s Association,
Oregon Historic Preserva-
tion Offi ce, Union County
Commissioners, La Grande
Landmarks Commission
and other interested parties
in the city.
“Having all those players
lined up made it possible
to show that this wasn’t
just the university trying to
get money for something
that needed to be fi xed or a
bunch of sentimentalists —
it was a community eff ort,”
Olson said.
When Olson and Loney
created a connection with
Restore Oregon in 2014,
pushing to fi nd funding
for a restoration project,
the sisters were shocked to
learn that few around the
state knew of the staircase
and its history.
“One of the things we’ve
found is that outside of La
Grande and Union County,
nobody knows about the
staircase,” Loney said.
Seydel and advo-
cates for the Grand Stair-
case managed to drum
up enough donations and
funds to begin the plan-
ning and organizing stages
of the restoration — Seydel
noted that the funding
eff orts have extended close
to 20 years.
The project inched
With the new fi nancial
backing, the university is
in the planning stages of
starting the staircase’s res-
toration in 2023.
The project will involve
working around the stair-
case, preparing the site,
reconstruction and land-
scaping. The staircase has
suff ered from the eff ects
of time, including running
hillside water, concrete
over 90 years old, broken
balusters, vandalism and
the freeze and thaw winter
cycle.
According to Seydel,
the restored staircase
will provide an opportu-
nity to bring back events
and traditions that were
an important part of the
early years of the univer-
sity. The stairs were most
notably used for gradua-
tion and Evensong, a cer-
emony in which gradu-
ating seniors traversed the
steps and symbolically left
the campus and embraced
the community as their
post-college lives began.
“That was very symbolic
of the connection between
the university and the wider
world,” Olson said.
Seydel noted that the
Grand Staircase also will
encourage tourism to
the university and Union
County, with visitors stop-
ping in La Grande to
admire the architectural
feature. Seydel envisions
the stairs again becoming
a focal point for university
andn community gatherings
and a place for wedding and
graduation photos among
other things.
In Olson and Loney’s
years of advocating for the
restoration of the staircase,
positive community feed-
back from alumni and com-
munity members helped
the cause gain substantial
momentum. With the stair-
case set to return to its orig-
inal glory, the sisters hope
the nostalgic structure will
create new memories.
“We really do hope that
it is a seed for some really
good things to happen for
the university and for the
city of La Grande and in the
region,” Olson said.
The restoration project is
set to bring back one of the
city’s most historical gems.
Originally built to link
Eastern Oregon University
with the La Grande com-
munity, the Grand Staircase
will strengthen that bond in
years to come.
“It supports not only
the university, but it is the
embodiment of the phys-
ical connection to the com-
munity,” Seydel said. “It
drives tourism, it drives
enrollment and it makes
the entrance very symbolic
from the university to the
community.”
TRAIL
Continued from Page A1
month. Other additions include
an ox yoke, donated by Craig’s
Antiques, of La Grande, that was
used by oxen to pull a wagon
across the Oregon Trail, Allen
said.
“It shows heavy wear consistent
with pulling covered wagons over
the Oregon Trail,” he said.
Yokes, like the one displayed,
were wooden beams normally
used between a pair of oxen to
enable them to pull together on a
load when working in pairs.
Oxen are regarded as the
unheralded heroes of the Oregon
Trail, Allen said. He noted that
the vast majority of the pioneers
coming West on the Oregon Trail
used oxen instead of horses. Pio-
neers preferred them because they
are calmer and easier to work with
than horses.
“They are not as temperamental
as horses,” Allen said.
Pioneers took excellent care
of their oxen, Allen said, because
they knew that without the ani-
mals, they would be in dire
circumstances.
SUICIDES
Continued from Page A1
State health offi cials
cautioned that Oregon sui-
cides are still well above the
national average, however.
And preliminary data for all
ages combined indicate an
increase in the number of
suicides in 2021.
“Racial and economic
inequalities impact the
overall health of many of
our communities and we
have much work to do to
alleviate this injustice,”
Allen said in the OHP state-
ment. “Our hearts grieve
alongside the Oregon com-
munities and families that
have experienced suicide
loss.”
Oregon was one of
seven states that showed
a decrease in suicide rates
between 2019 and 2020,
according to the CDC data
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Ronnie Allen poses for a photo on Monday, March 21, 2022, near a newly restored
logging sled at an Oregon Trail site in Lower Ladd Canyon south of La Grande. Allen
and Dale Counsell, both of La Grande, created the interpretive site fi ve years ago
and are continuing to add to it.
Artifacts, replicas and historical information help tell the story of the Oregon Trail
on Monday, March 21, 2022, at an interpretive site on Hot Lake Lane between
La Grande and Union.
Oxen sometimes drank water
from wooden buckets on the
Oregon Trail when they could not
be taken to streams or springs.
The buckets pioneers used to bring
water to their oxen were virtually
identical to a bucket that was also
recently added to the Oregon Trail
interpretive site, Allen said.
It is easy for visitors to the site
released in February. The
state had 18.3 deaths by sui-
cide per 100,000 people
in 2020 with a total of 833
deaths. In 2019, the sui-
cide death rate was 20.4 per
100,000, which amounted
to 906 total deaths.
As documented by the
recently released Youth
Youth Suicide Invention
and Prevention Plan annual
report, the number and rate
of suicides for youth age 24
and younger decreased in
2020 by nearly 14%, from
118 deaths in 2019 to 102
deaths in 2020.
Preliminary 2021 data
for Oregon indicate a three-
year decreasing trend in
suicide numbers for youth
age 24 and younger. While
Oregon’s youth suicide
deaths have decreased, it
must be noted that Oregon’s
youth suicide rate was much
higher than the national
average for the years pre-
to get a feel for the type of wagon
oxen pulled across the West for
it has two replicas of them. Both
are farm wagons more than 100
years old that are like those used
on the Oregon Trail. Allen said
farm wagons started being used on
the Oregon Trail due to a shortage
of the more popular Conestoga
wagons.
ceding the decrease, state
health offi cials said.
Health offi cials also said
that call volumes to Lines
for Life, a regional sub-
stance abuse and suicide
prevention nonprofi t that
operates several crisis help-
lines, has increased annu-
ally since 2016. Of the
crisis calls staff answered,
roughly the same percent
of callers reported thinking
about suicide in 2020 as in
2019.
The offi cials said it is
also important to note that
the number of youth sui-
cide deaths in 2021 did
not decrease in every
county in Oregon. Last
week, Lane County Public
Health declared a public
health emergency due to an
increase in youth suicides
since November 2021. In
response to this increase,
additional resources and
supports are being made
No actual wagons in which pio-
neers traveled across the Oregon
Trail still exist, Allen said. He
explained by the time pioneers
made it to Oregon, most wagons
were in terrible condition. Those
that were functional were used for
farm work until they worn out.
And after about fi ve years of farm
work, he said, “they were useless.”
Allen, who received a Distin-
available to Lane County
schools, health care pro-
viders and community
members.
Oregon Health
Authority responds
OHA works together
with other state agencies,
counties, Tribal partners,
communities and advocacy
groups across the state to
prevent suicide in Oregon.
State health offi cials said
that since March 2020, Ore-
gon’s suicide prevention
team has met weekly to
analyze data, plan preven-
tion eff orts and bolster the
state’s ability to respond to
emerging needs.
OHA has invested
heavily in several suicide
prevention, intervention,
treatment and “postven-
tion” programs, collectively
referred to as Big River
programming. Each of the
programs is available state-
guished Service Award in 2019
from the Northwest chapter of the
Oregon-California Trails Associa-
tion for his work in helping create
the Oregon Trail interpretive site
in Lower Ladd Canyon, said there
will be more additions to the
center in the future.
“It is an ongoing project,” he
said. “There really will be no end
to it.”
wide, has a coordinator to
support local eff orts, and
has seen robust growth
since they became available
in 2020.
State health offi cials
have also:
• Launched the Remote
Suicide Risk Assessment
and Safety Planning phone
line and created a tool to
support school administra-
tors, school counselors and
other school-based mental
health services.
• Created the Oregon
Behavioral Health Sup-
port Line, which off ers live
support.
• Developed the Youth
Suicide Assessment in Vir-
tual Environments (Youth-
SAVE) training, created
specifi cally for mental
health professionals who
serve youth. This training
equips school- and commu-
nity-based mental health
professionals to use vir-
tual tools to reach youth
who have thoughts of sui-
cide. More than 700 youth-
serving providers in Oregon
have taken YouthSAVE
training since its launch in
December 2020.
• In collaboration with
the Oregon Department of
Education, set up a School
Suicide Prevention and
Wellness team to provide
support to school districts
for suicide prevention plan-
ning and implementation.
Before then, Oregon
launched the Safe + Strong
Helpline and website at the
beginning of the pandemic
to provide support for those
struggling with the loss
of loved ones and lifestyle
changes. The Safe + Strong
Helpline, 1-800-923- HELP
(4357), is available 24/7.
More help and resources are
available in multiple lan-
guages on the Safe + Strong
website.