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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
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