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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2017)
COFFEE BREAK Saturday, July 15, 2017 East Oregonian Page 5C OUT OF THE VAULT Shifting sands reveal giant mastodon near Hermiston F rank Swaggart, a rancher in the Westland district near Hermiston, unearthed what University of Oregon scientists said was the largest mastodon find in Oregon when shifting sands revealed whitened and fossilized tusks and bones on July 6, 1954. Swaggart immediately called local amateur paleontologists Bob Buchanan, an insurance salesman; Frank Swayze, a retired banker; Kelly Tiller, a van operator; Walter Hamm, a retired druggist; and Frank Adams, an Arlington businessman, to investigate the find. The ancient creature partially uncovered in Swaggart’s initial diggings indicated a prehistoric pachyderm of massive proportions. One of the tusks measured nearly 8 feet in length, and a bone thought to be a femur, the upper leg bone, measured more than 3 feet long. The A mammoth tusk and what is either an upper or lower jaw of a mastodon are studied by Bob Buchanan, Frank Swayze and Frank Swaggart, all of Hermiston, in this July 7, 1954 East Oregonian photo. men left the find in place and called in scientists from the University of Oregon in Eugene to perform a proper investigation of the site, located about two miles north of the Umatilla ordnance depot. A research trip to the Hermiston library revealed the creature likely grazed the site, a former lake, during the mid-Pliocene era about 5 million years ago. Once Dr. J. Arnold Shotwell, curator of U of O’s museum of natural history, and his assistant Huntley Alvey arrived at the scene on July 22, they verified the mastodon was one of the late-era two-tusk types (mastodons with four tusks also existed during the early Pliocene), and the largest specimen found to date in Oregon. They carefully made plaster casts of the beast’s skull and tusk and employed the help of West End volunteers to remove the remains for study and display in Eugene. Dr. Shotwell and Alvey also unearthed the remains of rhinoceros, camel, ground sloth and three-toed horse, also dating to the mid-Pliocene, near the mastodon find. At the close of the official dig, the public was invited to visit the area, and encouraged to report any further significant finds. ■ Renee Struthers is the Community Records Editor for the East Oregonian. See the complete collection of Out of the Vault columns at eovault.blogspot.com DEAR ABBY Mom wants to attach strings to treasured hand-me-downs Dear Abby: I come from the family. Once a gift is given, a large family. We are not it becomes the property of the wealthy but always loved recipient to keep or dispose of. dressing our children up for Dear Abby: If someone holidays. Because the outfits did something “nice” for you, were expensive, as our children but it turned out to cause such outgrew them, we passed them a hassle that you didn’t appre- on to my sister-in-law. ciate the gesture, how do you politely tell the person not to do When my youngest daughter Jeanne was born, I asked her about the Phillips it again, or that you wish they hadn’t? dresses, and she informed me Advice An example: Someone gives they were not her style so she you a box of chocolates or had given them away. I was heartbroken, but I never said anything. cupcakes when you are trying to lose My older daughter is not a practicing weight. Or, the baby sitter folds all the Catholic, and my younger daughter is clothes that were sitting in the laundry not having children at all. I saved their basket, but puts everything away in christening gowns, but they don’t want the wrong drawers. (And you didn’t them. I would love to pass them on to ask her to fold the laundry in the first another family member so they can be place.) — Don’t Do It Again Dear Don’t: Here’s how. Thank the used instead of sitting in a trunk, but I don’t want them to leave the family person for the thoughtful gesture and or be sold. Is it OK to put stipulations explain that you are watching your diet, on something you are passing on? — cannot have candy and won’t be able to for the foreseeable future. If the person Unsure In New Jersey Dear Unsure: You can stipulate is someone who cares about you and is whatever you like, but there is no guar- not a saboteur, he or she won’t tempt antee that the garments will remain in you again without asking first. As for your baby sitter, while you thank her for trying to help you by folding and putting away your laundry, explain that this isn’t something anyone can do for you because you have your own way of doing it, and please not to do it again. Dear Abby: I am writing this to relieve a heavy burden I have carried for many years. I’m 16 and have had a crush on this girl since I was 9. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, and have never gotten over it. I have always had a problem expressing my feelings. I have been very shy from the day I was born. Now that I’m older, I have more confidence and have lost most of my shyness. What should I do after years of barely talking to her? — Not So Shy Anymore Dear Not So Shy Anymore: Now that you have more confidence, start talking to her. You don’t have to declare your love in the first conversation, but her reaction will tell you if she wants to have some sort of relationship with you, even if it’s only friendship — and that’s an auspicious beginning. DAYS GONE BY 100 Years Ago From the East Oregonian July 15-16, 1917 The past few days of excessive heat has been very hard on the grain of Umatilla County, according to all reports, and unless cooler weather and showers come soon the damage will be considerable. A hot wind that blew Saturday is reported to have cooked a great deal of spring grain in all parts of the county. Fall sown grain is not so much damaged. In the Echo and Stage Gulch section the fall sown stuff is so far advanced that the weather is not likely to hurt it, according to reports, but the spring sown stuff has been literally cooked. Spring sown grain on the reservation is also said to have suffered consid- erably. 50 Years Ago From the East Oregonian July 15-16, 1967 A pickup truck parked near a motel in Umatilla exploded early Friday morning when a Madras man turned on the ignition switch. The Umatilla Fire Department answered the alarm about 4 a.m. Driver of the truck was Delbert Carpenter, who is employed by the Pacific Clearing Co. that is clearing land on the north shore of the Columbia River. Carpenter told Fire Chief Hugh Little that he filled the gas tank just prior to parking the pickup Thursday night. Chief Little assumed heat forced the gas out through the carburetor on the engine and transmission housing. Carpenter said when he turned on the switch flames came up through the floor of the cab. He said he did not have time to turn off the ignition switch. 25 Years Ago From the East Oregonian July 15-16, 1992 For about five seconds Tuesday after- noon, workers at the Milton-Freewater Dairy Queen didn’t need electricity to make milkshakes — they let a minor earth tremor do the work. An earth- quake shook the Walla Walla Valley at 1:04 p.m. Tuesday. It hit northeast of Milton-Freewater near the Oregon/ Washington border. It was centered some seven miles beneath the earth’s surface, University of Washington seismologist Ruth Ludwin said, and measured about 4.2 on the Richter scale. Becky Wilson, manager of the Milton-Freewater Dairy Queen, said the quake made a sound similar to a jet airplane flying overhead and that the floor of the fast-food restau- rant shook for several seconds. THIS DAY IN HISTORY Today is the 196th day of 2017. There are 169 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On July 15, 1997, fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, was shot dead outside his Miami Beach home; suspected gunman Andrew Phillip Cunanan, 27, was found dead eight days later, a suicide. (Investigators believed Cunanan killed four other victims before Versace in a cross-country spree that began the previous March.) On this date: In 1799, French soldiers in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, which proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hiero- glyphs. In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union. Manitoba entered confeder- ation as the fifth Canadian province. In 1916, Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products Co., was founded in Seattle. In 1932, President Herbert Hoover announced he was slashing his own salary by 20 percent, from $75,000 to $60,000 a year; he also cut Cabinet members’ salaries by 15 percent, from $15,000 to $12,750 a year. In 1942, “The Pride of the Yankees,” Samuel Gold- wyn’s biopic starring Gary Cooper as baseball star Lou Gehrig, premiered in New York. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman was nominated for another term of office by the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia. In 1964, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona was nominated for president by the Republican national convention in San Francisco. In 1976, a 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver as they were abducted near Chowchilla, California, by three gunmen and impris- oned in an underground cell. (The captives escaped unharmed; the kidnappers were caught.) Today’s Birthdays: Author Clive Cussler is 86. Actor Ken Kercheval is 82. Actor Patrick Wayne is 78. Actor Jan-Michael Vincent is 73. Rhythm-and-blues singer Millie Jackson is 73. Rock singer-musician Peter Lewis (Moby Grape) is 72. Singer Linda Ronstadt is 71. Rock musician Artimus Pyle is 69. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, is 67. Rock musician Marky Ramone is 61. Rock musician Joe Satriani is Serving Families with Care and Compassion for 70 Years. •Alive & Well Smoothie BURNS MORTUARY 30% OFF 541-567-0272 2150 N. 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