NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, July 25, 2019
New Oregon Trail site honors legendary pioneer
Lower Ladd
Canyon Oregon
Trail Site in Union
County salutes
Ezra Meeker
viding details about the Ore-
gon Trail in Union County
and Meeker’s markers in this
area.
Allen has determined
that the site is exactly where
Meeker dedicated his Lower
Ladd Canyon marker on
April 11, 1906. The marker
replica is 5 feet west of where
the original maker dedi-
cated by Meeker was, said
Allen, who has analyzed
photographs of the 1906
dedication.
Meeker had plenty of
company at the site during
the dedication.
“There were 25 school
children, two oxen, a wagon
and collie named Jim,’’ Allen
said.
Meeker owned the col-
lie but sadly lost it later in
the Midwest during his
cross-country trip.
“He paid $5 for it and
offered a $15 reward for it,’’
Allen said.
The 25 school children
at the 1906 dedication were
from the old Ladd Canyon
School about 4 miles away.
Today this site is part of
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s Ladd
Marsh Wildlife Area. Allen
was granted permission to set
up the Lower Ladd Canyon
Oregon Trail Site at the area
by its manager, Kyle Martin.
Cathy Nowak, an ODFW
biologist at Ladd Marsh, said
By DICK MASON
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — The leg-
endary pioneer Ezra Meeker
devoted much of his life to
preserving the Oregon Trail
and keeping memories of it
alive.
Meeker’s efforts included
three stops in Union County
in 1906 to dedicate Oregon
Trail markers.
The steps Meeker took
in Union County on behalf
of the Oregon Trail are not
being forgotten.
Ronnie Allen of La
Grande is making sure of it.
Allen, with major help
from people like La Grande’s
Dale Counsell, has created
the Lower Ladd Canyon Ore-
gon Trail Site along Hot Lake
Lane, which salutes Meeker.
The site includes a replica of
Oregon Trail marker Meeker
dedicated there in 1906, a
covered wagon wheel that
rolled across the Oregon
Trail in the 1800s, a wooden
horse-drawn wagon used for
farm work more than a cen-
tury ago and a 26-inch by
34-inch sign with text pro-
EO Media Group Photo/Dick Mason
The site includes a replica of an Oregon Trail marker Ezra
Meeker dedicated there in 1906.
she is delighted to have an
Oregon Trail site there.
“it has always been a point
of pride that the Oregon Trail
goes through there. This
means that a very small part
of the Oregon Trail is pro-
tected there,’’ Nowak said.
“It looks very nice.’’
The wagon wheel at the
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
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site that went across the Ore-
gon Trail was donated by
Willie Myers of La Grande.
Allen said the help she pro-
vided for the project was crit-
ical to its success.
The wheel she donated
was from a collection of
her husband. He assembled
his wagon wheel collection
Partly sunny and
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beautiful
Pleasant with
plenty of sunshine
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
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96° 63°
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OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
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Kennewick Walla Walla
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Lewiston
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Astoria
74/58
Pullman
Yakima 91/58
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Portland
Hermiston
89/62
The Dalles 94/56
Salem
Corvallis
90/56
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La Grande
89/53
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
91/57
89/55
92/58
Ontario
96/64
Caldwell
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HERMISTON
Enterprise
91/58
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81°
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PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
83/54
Aberdeen
84/58
89/63
Tacoma
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Spokane
Wenatchee
82/59
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
98/66
Fri.
W 3-6
NNW 4-8
WSW 4-8
NW 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
92/55
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Sunrise today
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Moonset today
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NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 106° in Ontario, Calif. Low 30° in Odell Lake, Ore.
Trail Interpretive Center that
it has been put under glass.
Allen is delighted that it is
proving to be so popular.
“I’m proud to be able to
share history with the other
people of the state of Ore-
gon,” Allen said.
The replica Meeker
marker at the new site was
made from a rock of the same
shape of the original one
Allen found in the Grande
Ronde Valley.
“It was a twin,” said
Allen, who sent it to a monu-
ment company in Idaho to be
engraved.
The marker is a replica of
one of 15 for which Meeker
was present for the dedica-
tion of in 1906 while travel-
ing across much of the United
States in an ox-drawn wagon
along the Oregon Trail from
1906 to 1908.
The Oregon Trail was
close to Meeker’s heart
because he had come west
on it in 1852 from Iowa as
a young man. He later set-
tled in what is now Puyal-
lup, Washington, and was the
town’s first mayor.
Meeker in Union County
also dedicated a marker in
southwest La Grande, and
one in Ladd Canyon. The
marker in Ladd Canyon has
never been found, but Allen
believes it may still be there.
“I am often up there look-
ing for it,” Allen said.
Food stamp benefits for Oregonians
threatened by proposed rule change
By REBECCA ELLIS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Plenty of sunshine
while living in Fossil.
The farm wagon was
donated by Counsell and
his family’s nearby Century
Farm. Counsell played a big
role in helping to set up the
Lower Ladd Canyon Oregon
Trail Site, Allen said.
Anyone looking for the
new display need only look
for a 9-foot posted brown,
white and black “Oregon
Trail” sign, below which is
a smaller “Trail Site” plac-
ard. The signs were obtained
from an Oregon Department
of Transportation sign col-
lection in Island City. Allen
credits Sharon Magnu-
son, a La Grande Observer
employee, with playing an
important role in helping him
obtain these signs.
The Meeker marker is a
replica of one that had been
missing for about 100 years
until Allen found it in 2017
in the driveway of a Union
County home after an exten-
sive search. Allen later
purchased the 150-pound
marker from its owner and
next showed it to officials
from the Oregon Trail Inter-
pretive Center in Baker City,
who confirmed that it was the
missing marker. Allen then
donated it to the interpretive
center in Baker City, where
it is now displayed at an Ezra
Meeker display. Allen said
so many people were touch-
ing the marker at the Oregon
SALEM — Officials
at Oregon’s Department
of Human Services are
crunching numbers, try-
ing to determine how many
food stamp recipients might
be impacted by a federal
proposal to toughen eli-
gibility requirements for
SNAP benefits.
The Trump administra-
tion announced this week
that it plans on “closing a
loophole” that had previ-
ously made recipients of
“minimal” benefits through
Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, known as
TANF, automatically eligi-
ble for SNAP. Oregon is one
of 43 states that qualifies
certain TANF recipients
for SNAP benefits without
requiring the applicant to
again verify their income
and report their expenses.
“For too long, this loop-
hole has been used to effec-
tively bypass important eli-
gibility guidelines,” said
U.S. Secretary of Agricul-
ture Sonny Perdue in a press
release. “Too often, states
have misused this flexibil-
ity without restraint.”
The administration esti-
mates 3.1 million Ameri-
cans could lose their SNAP
benefits under the rule
change, which it claimed
would save the Department
of Agriculture billions of
dollars. Jennifer Grentz, a
spokesperson with Oregon’s
Department of Human Ser-
vices, said the agency’s pol-
icy team is currently trying
to figure out how many of
those live in Oregon.
“We know that if that
change went into effect, it
would affect Oregonians
that are currently receiving
SNAP or those that could
become eligible,” Grentz
said.
According to 2017 data,
which the agency said was
the most recent available,
about 100,000 Oregonians
receive cash assistance
through TANF and roughly
911,000 receive SNAP food
benefits.
“A lot of Oregonians
are facing hunger and food
insecurity because of the
high costs of living here,”
said Jeff Kleen, a pub-
lic policy advocate at Ore-
gon Food Bank. “Reduc-
ing categorical eligibility
will have a disproportion-
ate impact.”
Kleen said, for the
past 15 years, Oregon has
allowed people receiving
minimal benefits through
TANF to qualify for SNAP.
He believes the provision
fueled the state’s evolution
from being “one of the very
top states in terms of level
of hunger and food insecu-
rity” to a state that’s more
middle of the pack. From
2014 to 2016, Oregon had
the 14th highest rate of food
insecurity in the country,
according to the Oregon
Center for Public Policy.
If the rollback happens,
Kleen said he fears “we’re
going to see increased
rates of hunger, increased
demand on food banks, and,
ultimately, weaker commu-
nities and families.”
The rule will be pub-
lished Wednesday and
remain open for public
comment for 60 days.
Roadwork underway around Oregon
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — Summertime
— and the paving’s easy.
The Oregon Department
of Transportation is embark-
ing on dozens of projects to
fix up roads and other trans-
portation
infrastructure
across the state this summer.
Paving work tends to
ramp up in the summer,
because workers need certain
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