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About North Douglas herald. (Drain Or) 2023-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 2023)
Page 6 December 2023 Community Pages 2023 Oktoberfest a North Douglas Favorite The 2023 Oktoberfest attracts people from all over the region. Festival participants enjoyed awesome live music, free hay rides, shopping at excellant food and other vendors, there were free pumpkins for all children, kids games , and cider. Hay rides were provided by Ratman, Charles Ferrill, Music by Myndee and Charles Ferrill along with Alder Street. Jim and Ame Beard provided the Cyder press, so that you could watch while he made the cider and there wqas also canned cider ready to buy. Vagos motorcycle club provided 100 free pumpkins for the event. There were free ghost photos available, done by Moe’s Moments photography and Jack’s Barber Shoppe Co, ODOT Continued from Page 5 makes it a good idea to remove it. ODOT seemed to be saying that if they fly through town there wont be as much traffic backup. Whoa! A lot of the suggestions were for a signal or traffic light and many asked why, the ODOT boys said the was no “warrant” that would allow for a light there. It ended after nearly an hour and a half with no one convinced and a lot of folks expressed doubts and distrust of the speakers and the process. ODOT passed out comment cards and pleaded for residents to return them by the 29th of November. The stop sign was first removed after some recent ODOT road work at that intersection. The residents all claim to have been unaware of the removal plans that was supposed to have been presented to the City prior to construction and a process may have been available to add a signal had it been contested when the plans were submitted. There is some reports that the ODOT premise that a signal is not available, isn’t correct. According to Charles Ferrill, “https:// mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009r1r2r3/part4.pdf - If anyone is interested this shows the number of cars needed for a light to be installed, note that it is 70% for a town less than 10,000 as noted in the charts, page 440. And for the record as I suspected Oregon does not have to follow federal standard MUTCD they can adopt their own supplement to fit local needs/conditions, as Oregon has already done, but it does have to be approved by the federal highway administration. But they can and absolutely already have deviated from the national MUTCD”. Although it seems to be an issue that is not going to be left as is, the underlying sentiment is that ODOT is going to do whatever it wants, as it always does. The ODOT spokesman and Dan Latham expressed their sincerity that it wasn’t a done deal and they really wanted to hear from residents to help find an appropriate remedy. free kids games were provided by Exclusively Bridal and Church Of Christ women. Beer garden was also provided by Jack’s Barber Shoppe Co. There was a somewhat popular reptile petting zoo by Chantel Calveneau. Many vendors with items to sell were there like, food vendor, Blakes Wicked Wieners. Reese, the Clown, hilariously, interacted with kids, teaching them the fun art of being a clown. A big draw was the Trebuchet pumpkin hurling by Benjamin Sanders, man those things will Fly! The costume contest and pumpkin carving contest with prizes donated by the vendors made for another fantastic year of Drains version of Oktoberfest, sponsored by the Drain Chamber of Commerce Yoncalla Public Library Notes by Fawn Sybrandt With the cold weather arriving and the holidays around the corner, here are some updates from the Yoncalla Public Library. Thanks to our volunteers we are now able to open on Mondays. Our hours are Monday 12-4, Wednesday 10-4, Thursday 4- 7, and Saturday 10-2. Feel free to drop by our cozy space at 194 Birch St in Yoncalla. Every second Saturday of the month from 10-12 we have Coffee Club. This is a space to drop-in for a cup of coffee, get help with any technology needs, or just meet up for conversation. We’re excited about our upcoming Festive Family Fun Day in December. On Saturday the 16th from 10-4, join us for crafts, stories, and holiday treats. We always have a great turn-out and would love to see everyone again. Follow us on Facebook for more information and to see what we’re up to every week. See you at the library! Continued from Page 1 History of Winchester Dam townsite they laid out, surveyed then named Elkton. Some members continued up the Umpqua to where a local boatman operated a ferry. Another townsite was surveyed and named for Herman or John Winchester, both members of the boating party. The expeditionaires sailed back to San Francisco and returned with about 100 settlers, that was in the autumn of 1850. At that time Winchester, Oregon, was the most populous settlement in the Umpqua Valley and served as the county seat until it was moved to Roseburg, five miles to the south, in 1854. By the 1880s, the town of Winchester was practically abandoned. In the spring of 1890 Henry Dumbleton bought the empty town of Winchester. Convincing manufacturers and businesses to relocate and establish an industrial based city there, on the assumption that a dam on the river would supply sufficient power. In June of 1890, Dumbleton awarded the mill dam construction to Charles A. Briggs, a contractor and sawmill operator from nearby Coles Valley, Oregon. There are historical references to an earlier “weir” dam at the same location where Briggs built the Winchester Dam. The four-foot-high dam was built of log cribbing made from the old growth pine trees that grew along the river. By August of 1890, Briggs had excavated and constructed the pier and the seat for the gigantic turbine. Completed in October of 1890, the dam was a “massive structure, timbers consist of huge pine trees not less than four feet in diameter, flooring laid with planks about a half inch apart to prevent swelling, to be filled with sand and natural debris… ”, as reported in the Roseburg Review. Designed with a seven-foot head, the Winchester Dam’s 104-inch diameter Leffel turbine weighed 16,000 pounds, possibly the largest such turbine brought to the Pacific Coast at that time. At the southernmost end of the dam face, stood the dam powerhouse, capable of generating 2,000 horsepower. Then the Financial Panic of 1893 bankrupted Dumbleton and as a result, the township of Winchester remained mostly abandoned for the next ten years. In 1903, an inlet downstream from the powerhouse at the south end of the dam became the city of Roseburg’s primary source of drinking water. The following year, Fred J. Blakely, Lewis G. Dumbleton and Louis Bargee founded the Winchester Townsite Company, trying their hand at turning Winchester into an industrial center. By 1904 the company was supplying Roseburg with both light and water. Three large turbines of about 250 horsepower each supply the power for the great plant with a 250- horsepower boiler and engine in reserve for emergency power. Within three years the Winchester Dam’s powerhouse on the southern bank of the North Umpqua River was rebuilt and the dam’s height was raised to 17-feet, and the log crib dam was partially encased in concrete. Later, in 1907, the Winchester Dam and the sawmill were sold to J.L. and S.A. Kendall, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who owned vast timber holdings in the North Umpqua Watershed. The May 1, 1911, Roseburg Review reported on a fire that destroyed the Winchester Dam powerhouse and interrupted water and electrical service to the City of Roseburg, the damage was estimated at $38,000. J.L. and S.A. Kendall, the owners of the Winchester Dam and sawmill were also investors in the Douglas County Water and Light System, the company that rebuilt the powerhouse. In 1912, the powerhouse was complete and made practically impossible for another fire to damage it seriously. In 1923, the Winchester Dam and the holdings of the Douglas County Light and Water Company, were purchased by the California Oregon Power Company (COPCO) of Medford, Oregon. COPCO President, Paul B. McKee ordered a thorough review of the condition and construction of the Winchester Dam. Although the Douglas County Light and Water Company had planned to make further improvements, COPCO was not be interested in the further enlargement of the Winchester plant on account of the small capacity and the high cost per kilowatt. At some point in the early 1920s a deep “V” notch was cut into the dam face through which the water would flow and fish could leap through the notch and access spawning grounds upstream. On one occasion, commercial fishermen netted fish leaping through the notch and over 100,000 lbs. of fish were caught there and shipped to restaurants in Albany, Salem, in Portland. During high winter high flows huge trees and roots balls are carried down river and collide with the wood and concrete Winchester Dam, punching holes in its face. Every six or seven years they’d drain the water behind the dam and repair the leaks. The notch in the Dam was replaced with a concrete fish ladder in 1945. The 78-year-old fish ladder is now so old, the concrete is worn down to the rusting rebar. As the population of Roseburg grew and the demand for electricity increased exponentially, the low capacity of the Winchester Dam power plant proved to be inadequate. Soon COPCO was dependent on electricity generated outside of Douglas County. In 1948, the Toketee Powerhouse, the first of the eight dams in the new North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project – was erected sixty miles upstream from the Winchester Dam. Although COPCO continued to operate the Winchester Dam, it was obsolete by the 1950s. In Continued on page 8
