EIGHT DIE
IN WRECK
NEAR CRANE
CALIFORNIA
RETHINKING
POT RULES
REGION/3A
NORTHWEST/2A
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2018
142nd Year, No. 203
One dollar
WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
PENDLETON
Smoke from Washington
descends over Oregon
DEQ issues air
quality advisory,
forecasts it to stay
through weekend
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A haze hangs over downtown Pendleton on Tuesday as smoke from regional wild-
fires has inundated the region. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
has issued an air quality advisory for much of Northeastern Oregon advising resi-
dents to avoid prolonged outdoor activities.
PENDLETON
At various points Tues-
day afternoon, Pendleton
had the worst air quality in
the state.
Due to wildfires in Wash-
ington, Pendleton had a par-
ticulate matter of 173 at 3
p.m., according to the Ore-
gon Department of Environ-
mental Quality.
Considered “unhealthy”
by the DEQ’s air quality
index, Pendleton’s air qual-
ity was considered worse
than several sites in Jack-
son and Josephine counties,
which have been inundated
with smoke from fires in
southern Oregon and north-
ern California for weeks.
DEQ
spokeswoman
Katherine Benenati said the
department was issuing an
air quality warning for much
of the Interstate 84 corridor,
including northeast Oregon.
Although the DEQ isn’t
attributing the smoke to a
specific fire in Washing-
ton, there are several fires
in central Washington that
have burned thousands
of acres and are far from
containment.
According to a DEQ
press release, the smoke is
expected to remain in north-
eastern Oregon through the
weekend, although light
winds may clear some of it
on Thursday.
The Umatilla County
See SMOKE/8A
HERMISTON
Family alleges
officer beat,
injured teen
Police investigating actions
after arrest during scuffle
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
A Pendleton police officer is under
investigation following allegations of
brutality. Chief Stuart Roberts said so far,
those allegations don’t match with what
police are finding.
But the 15-year-old boy and his mother
said an officer choked him and struck him
on his head when he was trying to return
his dog home.
The East Oregonian generally does not
identify minors facing criminal charges.
The EO also has not identified the offi-
cers involved because they remain on
duty and are not facing criminal charges.
The teen and his family live off South-
west 18th Street, which ends at the Uma-
tilla River levee. They said the evening of
July 29 several juveniles came from the
direction of the levee and squared off to
fight in the street near their home. About
then, someone opened the front door, and
Apollo, the teen’s 8-month-old pit bull
mix, took off at a dead run and headed to
the levee.
The teen said he gave chase and caught
the dog a few blocks away at Trailhead
Park. The juveniles who were in the fight
also headed that way, he said, and police
followed.
He scooped up the dog, but an officer
told him to stop.
“I said no,” he said he responded, “I’m
taking my dog home.”
The officer grabbed his right wrist, he
See OFFICER/8A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Dr. Rose was a dentist who originally occupied one of the offices in the top of the old Swayze bank building on Main Street in Hermiston.
Mitch Myers has remodeled the top floor of the old bank.
Old buildings
get new lives
Fast-growing city faces challenges in protecting its past
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
T
here are pieces of Hermiston’s his-
tory that have been preserved in
boxes of photographs at locals’
homes and a few scattered historic
buildings.
An archway from the previous iter-
ation of Armand Larive Middle School
— once known as Union High School
— stands near the public library as a
testament to the many school buildings
Hermiston has seen come and go over its
more than century-long history.
But Hermiston doesn’t have any
buildings on the National Register of
Historic Places, despite being the big-
gest city in a county that has 42 sites on
the registry (Pendleton has 16 of those;
Echo has 10).
Carlisle Harrison, one of Hermiston’s
history enthusiasts, said some of the
city’s lack of historical preservation has
to do with how the town developed. It
was small and very poor for the first few
decades of its existence (the town was
incorporated in 1907), then saw a pop-
ulation explosion during the building of
the McNary Dam and Umatilla Chemi-
cal Depot in the 1940s. At that point no
one was as worried about eye-pleasing
architecture as they were about getting
buildings up fast and cheap.
The results, he said, were a lot of
buildings that were “nothing to write
home about” and not built to last into the
21st century.
“Things were practical and inexpen-
sive,” he said. “In Pendleton the mon-
eyed wheat farmers came into town and
built nice houses.”
Harrison said that wasn’t necessarily a
bad thing — it contributed to the reputa-
tion Hermiston still has today of being a
friendly, welcoming town where it doesn’t
matter whether you were born there.
“In some respects, people had more
to do with each other and not so much
with the things we have,” he said.
It has also made it easier to develop
and modernize without worrying about
historic preservation.
The downside is that today Hermiston
lacks the “historic downtown” approach
to draw tourists. There is no grand, his-
toric city hall building. The Oasis theater
that used to sit on Main Street is gone,
as is the old hotel. A tall brick cathedral
with stained glass windows from the
early days of the city was replaced with
a Chevron station.
Dick Lowry, another of Hermiston’s
unofficial historians, said Hermiston
See BUILDINGS/8A
“Things were practical and inexpensive.”
— Carlisle Harrison, Hermiston history enthusiast, on the city’s buildings in the mid-20th century