SHAKE THE LAKE!
WALLOWA LAKE FIREWORKS 4TH OF JULY 2019
Before darkness set in, a number of people who brought their
own fi reworks kept the big Shake the Lake crowd entertained
with some very nice displays.
Ellen M Bishop
Enterprise, Oregon
135th Year, No. 13
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
$1
HACKBARTH BEGINS
THEATER BUILDING
Modern structure in West Main Street
Also To Have Storerooms.
Wallowa County
Record Chieftain
Thursday, July 18, 1918
Ellen Morris Bishop
Finishing touches get applied to the OK Theatre in preparation for the 100th anniversary
celebration July 12th.
OK Theatre to Celebrate
100th Anniversary in Style
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
The OK Theatre is a community land-
mark and known as one of the fi nest small
musical venues in eastern Oregon, if not the
entire state. Thanks to the efforts of owner
Darrell Brann and his family, who bought the
theater fi ve years ago, the theater has hosted
a number of landmark concerts in Wallowa
County. However, the theater’s biggest land-
mark is coming up on the weekend of July
12-13. Brann is putting on a 100th anniver-
sary gala at the theater in order to celebrate
its century in business.
This isn’t just any run-of-the-mill cele-
bration. National musical acts, a play and
a bonanza of food will take place over the
weekend. The event is described as a Fat
Tuesday Mardi Gras.
The Friday, July 12 opening celebration
starts at 5 p.m. and features a virtual smor-
gasbord of culinary delights that include
wares from a number of vendors, capped
with an evening play, “How the West was
Dun,” featuring players from the Mid-Val-
ley Theater Company and directed by Lisa
Closner, who is mother to the nationally
known all-female musical trio, Joseph, who
has performed at the theater. Closner did a
theater camp at the OK last year. While there
she mentioned to Brann that she likes to do
western melodrama.
“I told her that would be a perfect way to
kick off our centennial, to do something like
a vaudeville-esque kind of thing with a west-
ern theme,” Brann said. “She decided to do
“How the West was Dun,” and we decided it
would be fun to do a dinner, which I’d been
thinking about for a long time.”
The dinner is an all-catered affair that
requires a wristband, but patrons will receive
a multi-course meal with food provided by
such local culinary luminaries as the Car-
men Ranch, Backyard Gardens, Vanilla
Stag, Mark and Denise Michnick, Jera and
Modern structure in
West Main Street Also To
Have Storerooms.
Work on the construc-
tion of A. Hackbarth’s new
building on Main Street be-
tween the Enterprise State
bank and the J.C. Penny
company store began yester-
day. The basement was ex-
cavated in the early spring.
The building will have a
front of 60 feet and a depth of
110 feet going thru to the al-
ley. The walls will be of rein-
forced concrete, with a front
elevation of 32 feet, of orna-
mental concrete. There will
be two stores on the street
and a barber shop equipped
with baths and thoroly mod-
ern in all respects.
The main part of the
structure will be devoted to
a theater which will take up
a space of 42 feet wide by 110
feet long and will seat up-
wards of 500 persons. The
In 1918 most farming equipment
still depended very much on horse
power, as this ad from the July 1918
Record Chieftain suggests.
fl oor will be sloping, run-
ning up over the stores at
the front. This is a new idea
in theater construction just
brought from the east. The
street entrance will lead up
an incline, taking patrons
to the middle of the room.
Turning backward, they
ascend another incline, tak-
ing them to the highest part
See Theater, Page A7
See OK Theatre, Page A7
Campaign for East Moraine moves forward
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
If you want to hike the
East Moraine, and you start
at the “green gate” –a dou-
ble set of metal stock gates
about 2/3 of the way from the
County Park to Wallowa Lake
Lodge, you’ll fi nd a polite,
laminated, chartreuse-green
sign posted there that says
“Would you like to continue
to have access to this beau-
tiful landscape and prevent
it from becoming a housing
development? Learn more,
get involved, and donate:
www.morainecampaign.org
or call 541-426-2042.”
See Moraine, Page A8
Wallowa Land Trust Conservation Program Manager Eric Greenwell (red shirt) talks about the challenges of funding the Campaign
for the East Moraine with a group of hikers Saturday, July 6.