A8
EASTERN OREGON
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 2, 2022
State plans to invest millions in Kam Wah Chung expansion
By JUSTIN DAVIS
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — One of
Grant County’s best known
tourist destinations is set for
a multimillion-dollar reno-
vation and expansion that
will better showcase the rich
history of Chinese immi-
grants in the region and
provide a boost to the local
economy.
The Kam Wah Chung
State Heritage Site in John
Day is centered around a
19th century stone structure
that was originally a trading
post. The building was later
purchased by Lung On and
Ing “Doc” Hay and operated
as a general store and Chinese
apothecary.
The site was a longtime
center of the Chinese commu-
nity in Grant County. Plans
call for a new interpretive
center, additional parking
and other improvements on
an expanded, multi-acre site.
State financing for the
project includes funds for
additional improvements
designed to link the Kam
Wah Chung site with down-
town John Day.
Identifying the need for
an expansion began with the
fi rst restoration of the site in
1974-76 under former curator
Carolyn Meisenheimer. In the
years that followed, Meisen-
heimer began to notice the
deterioration of things like the
epigrams on the walls, paper
products and various artifacts
within the apothecary and
general store. A master plan
created to address these dete-
riorations ultimately led to the
conclusion that an expansion
was necessary.
Park manager Dennis
Bradley says that following the
master plan’s creation in 2004,
various parcels of land adja-
cent to the Kam Wah Chung
site on Northwest Canton
Street were identifi ed as being
Justin Davis/Blue Mountain Eagle
A display of goods lines the shelves at the general store at the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage
Site. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is planning a multimillion-dollar project
to expand and upgrade the historical tourist attraction in John Day.
ideal fi ts for the expansion.
“We identifi ed fi ve proper-
ties within the master plan that
were suited to the expansion
of the interpretive center,” he
said. “Since that time, we have
acquired three of those prop-
erties.”
The Oregon Parks and
Recreation Department is
in discussions to finalize
the purchase of the last two
parcels for the expansion,
Gleason Park and Gleason
Pool.
“The agreement is already
in place,” Bradley said.
The city of John Day has
agreed to demolish the pool,
which is no longer in use,
before the state closes on the
land sale.
The demolition of the pool
and an adjoining building
is under review by the State
Historic Preservation Offi ce.
The 64-year-old pool is no
longer in use, but Bradley said
any structure over 50 years
old falls into the category of
a historic building.
“We’ve heard the Glea-
son Pool is probably the
second-oldest pool in
Oregon,” Bradley added.
There are things that can
be done to mitigate the pres-
ervation office’s concerns,
including putting up an inter-
pretive panel that explains the
history of the pool and shows
what it looked like.
Closing on the Gleason
Park and Gleason Pool prop-
erties is critical to the expan-
sion of the site. Current plans
have the new interpretive
center’s location overlapping
with where the pool currently
sits. According to museum
curator Don Merritt, the
3-acre Gleason Park site will
remain largely unchanged for
the time being.
More artifacts,
virtual tours
The Kam Wah Chung
State Heritage Site’s current
facilities, park managers say,
are just too small.
Limited space in the inter-
pretive center means it can
only display roughly half
of the artifacts in its collec-
tion. The size of the facil-
ity also restricts the number
of virtual tours that can be
conducted — an important
way of reducing foot traffi c in
the original Kam Wah Chung
building, which is showing
signs of age and wear.
The expansion will add
around 2,000 square feet to
the 8,600 square feet the heri-
tage site occupies now.
A new 500 -square-
foot theater will double
the number of virtual real-
ity tours the site can off er.
Virtual tours are popular
at the site, but there’s only
enough space for 10 tours
at a time. The new theater
room will be able to conduct
20 virtual tours at one time
once completed.
In a feasibility study
released in May, the state
unveiled two proposed
designs for the new inter-
pretive center. The first is
a single, large structure
inspired by Chinese archi-
tecture of the late 1800s and
early 1900s. The key charac-
teristic of the building would
be a sweeping roof design
and gable framing similar to
traditional Chuan-Dou fram-
ing. The building would be
located where the community
pool currently sits and would
have visitor access and park-
ing off Northwest Canton
Street.
The second design incor-
porates traditional East-
ern Oregon architectural
features. Instead of a single
building, the interpretive
center would consist of two
buildings with roofs at diff er-
ent heights. The goal with
this design is to break down
the scale of the interpretive
center to better match the
existing scale of the historic
Chinese buildings on-site.
The design would feature a
double-sloped roof in two
diff erent sections.
This design would allow
for a separate entrance for
staff into the area and break
up the mass of the building.
With this design, the inter-
pretive center would also sit
where the community pool
is currently located, but visi-
tor access and parking would
be behind the building as
opposed to Canton Street.
This design would also leave
an existing archeological site
free for research purposes.
A fi nal decision regarding
the design of the new heritage
site hasn’t been made yet, but
Merritt says they are “heavily
leaning” toward the second,
two-building layout.
The money is
already there
Funding for the expansion
was provided by the 2021
Oregon Legislature through
Senate Bill 5506, which
authorized $50 million in
general obligation bonds to
fund park projects through-
out the state.
“Kam Wah Chung was
fortunate enough to receive
some of that funding, so
that’s where the funds are
coming from,” said Bradley.
The cost of the project is
estimated at $4.5 million.
In conjunction with the
Kam Wah Chung project,
the city of John Day plans
on sprucing up the down-
town business district and
strengthening the connection
between downtown and the
renovated heritage site. The
city received a $1 million
state grant for infrastructure
improvements.
At a John Day City
Council meeting on Feb. 8,
City Manager Nick Green
outlined a detailed proposal
regarding how the money
will be spent. Half of the $1
million grant will be spent on
improving sidewalks, park-
ing, signs and wayfinding
markers along Canton and
Main streets.
Another $250,00 would
be used for landscaping and
site beautification, while
$200,000 would be spent on
aesthetic improvements to
Main Street businesses that
could include fresh paint,
new signs, facade improve-
ments, upgraded streetlights
and murals.
Another $50,000 would go
toward demolishing Gleason
Pool and compacting the soil
there. The city has set aside
$22,000 from the sale of the
park and pool properties to
cover the remainder of the
estimated cost of demolition.
The city has also applied
for an Oregon Main Street
grant worth up to $200,000.
If approved, the grant would
double the size of the city’s
investment into upgrades
along Main Street.
Snowpack melting faster than expected
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — Eastern
Oregon’s snowpack is melt-
ing faster than expected,
worsening an ongoing
drought and pointing to a
very dry year if conditions
continue.
Scott Oviatt, a hydrologist
and snow survey supervisor
for the Natural Resources
Con se r vat ion Se r v ice
Oregon, a member of the
U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture, said snow started melt-
ing almost two weeks earlier
than usual, and many sites
across the state hadn’t even
reached their peak available
snowpack levels before melt
off began in the lower eleva-
tions.
“Once the snowpack
starts melting out, it’s hard
to stop,” he said.
The information comes
weeks after many Eastern
Oregon snowpack levels
were reported to be in good
shape. The dramatic decline
in snowpack levels coupled
with the ongoing drought
has caused concern among
experts who are watching the
snow water equivalent levels
closely.
“The fact that we didn’t
reach a peak value and the
fact that we’re melting out
early is a concern because
we are losing the avail-
able water content in the
snow pack (earlier) than we
normally plan on,” Oviatt
said. “Depending on location
and elevation, we’re about
two or three weeks early, and
we didn’t achieve our peak,
and now we’re at 70% for the
Grande Ronde/Powder area
and we’re dropping rapidly.”
Those who rely on water
irrigation channels should be
especially concerned about
the rapidly melting snow.
While snowmelt is gener-
ally expected to hit its zero
point sometime in mid to
late spring, having the water
runoff begin and end earlier
means that resources will
become scarce as summer
drags on — and a heat wave
event can further impact
water supplies and leave
farmers and agricultural
industries dry.
Last year’s heat wave
is Hiring in Pendleton
Union County Search and Rescue/Contributed Photo, File
The Wallowa Mountains stand covered in snow in October
2021. A faster than normal snowmelt in early 2022 has dra-
matically lowered the snow equivalent levels in Eastern Or-
egon, signaling increased water scarcity for the late-spring
and summer months.
depleted water supplies and
caused some farms in Oregon
to run out of water entirely by
late June 2021, weeks ahead
of schedule. In one instance,
Plantworks, a nursery in
Cove, had to purchase new
water storage containers
and fi ll them with city water
in order to keep their crops
alive.
“Essentially, folks that
rely on irrigation water will
have less available, and
there will probably be some
restrictions applied depend-
ing upon where they get
their water and their water
rights,” Oviatt said. “There
will be less available surface
water for instream fl ows to
support things. There will
be less available groundwa-
ter storage because we’re not
recharging our system with
our ground soil moisture and
because we’ve been in a long-
term drought and we didn’t
really recover from that over
this winter.”
Union County watermas-
ter Shad Hattan agrees, stat-
ing that if the area doesn’t get
significant spring rain, “it
will be hard on everything.
Agriculture, stream fl ows.
If we don’t get moisture for
April and May, that’s (going
to be) hard on everybody.”
One silver lining to the
early melt off and continu-
ation of the drought? Fire
season might be milder
compared to last year.
“The biggest thing is
how fast the snow we have
right now comes off ,” said
Trevor Lewis, assistant fi re
management offi cer with the
Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest. “If we lose our snow
real quick, and it dries out
fairly quickly then our grass
growth isn’t as high, so we
generally see lower rates of
spread with our fi res, even if
we do have signifi cant fuel
moistures that are dryer. It
really depends on how this
snow comes off .”
Lewis said that last year’s
slow runoff allowed for above
average grass and brush
growth — primary fuels for
wildfi res that were primed
by the heat wave that pushed
temperatures to record highs
in most of Oregon. That
grass growth meant that fi res
spread more rapidly, and in
the case of the Bootleg Fire
resulted in one of the nation’s
largest wildfi res for 2021.
“It’s kind of a catch-22
for us,” Lewis said. “Does it
come quickly and we have a
drought? Or does it come off
slow and we end up getting
the grass growth?”
Despite being a La Nina
year, the Eastern Oregon
snowpack wasn’t enough
to start turning around the
drought conditions in the
area. As of March 31, most
of Eastern Oregon remains in
severe or moderate drought,
and conditions are expected
to worsen over the summer.
“In order to recover from
that long-term drought we
need successive years and
we need excessive amounts
of precipitation, and we’re
just not getting it,” Oviatt
said. “It’s not going to happen
this year, we’re going to have
to make some sacrifi ces in
terms of surface water and
available water.”
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