LOCAL
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
A13
History center celebrates 20th year with open house
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — The Wal-
lowa History Center is clos-
ing in on its 20th anniversary
celebration, and will be host-
ing an open house in celebra-
tion on the Fourth of July.
The celebration will take
place in conjunction with the
town’s Fourth of July Parade
at the home of the center at
the corner of 1st and Madi-
son streets in Wallowa, the
former home of the U.S. For-
est Service station.
The open house will fea-
ture displays and give visi-
tors an opportunity to look
at the location that will be
in the process of being con-
verted into a library, inter-
pretive center and more in
the next few years.
“We have a brochure. You
can read the brochure (and)
do a tour of the facility up
there,” center director Mary
Ann Burrows said.
The center has under-
gone a lot of growth since its
beginning 20 years ago. Bur-
rows said it started with not
much more than a display
board that was set up at the
Wallowa County Library.
“We really started out on
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
This building at the home of the Wallowa History Center will eventually be converted into an interpretive center.
the Fourth of July with one
of our fi rst displays,” she
said. “We had a presenta-
tion board with materials in
the library, and just moved
on from there. We got a
501(c)3 to buy a computer
and some materials.”
David Weaver, president
of the board for the center,
credited both Burrows and
Mark Highberger for their
eff orts in growing the center.
“They started out really
small and have moved
around overtime previ-
ously before landing here,”
he said, “and kind of really
expanding the work they
have done. Both Mark and
Mary Ann are really instru-
mental. … Mary Ann is the
heart of the organization. It
was her inspiration that got
it going, and she knows a
ton about Wallowa County
history.”
Part of what got Burrows
started building up the cen-
ter was seeing a loss of town
history.
“There were so many
of the older families that
were leaving. Nothing was
being saved,” she said. “I’ve
always been a history buff . I
hated to see the history of the
town disappearing.”
Highberger said Burrows
would gather information
and track down old photo-
graphs of the area. She even
salvaged archivable items
that were being thrown away.
“She did that by going
through archives, talking
to people, rescuing a lot of
material from places like the
city dump,” he said.
Many of the items the
center has collected over the
past 20 years will be on dis-
play when the new center is
complete.
But on this Fourth of July,
visitors will get to see what
the future holds for a place
designed to preserve the past.
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
There already are some items in place in what will be the research library for the Wallowa
History Center.
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
Shown are the covers of the fi rst two editions of the Wallowa Quarterly, a new magazine put
out by the Wallowa History Center. The center’s newsletter was essentially converted into the
new publication.
History center’s newsletter
is now Wallowa Quarterly
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — For
years, the Wallowa History
Center produced a newslet-
ter that shared information
about the past of the town.
It now has a completely
new look — and a new
name.
The Wallowa Quarterly
made its debut earlier this
year. The glossy-paper mag-
azine is an expansion upon
the eff orts made by history
center Director Mary Ann
Burrows, and still includes
many of her latest fi nds for
the center.
“Mary Ann turned out the
fi rst newsletter. Member-
ship was only $5 a year, but
members weren’t really get-
ting anything, they were just
giving,” said Mark High-
berger, the magazine’s editor
and publisher. “We wanted
to be able to spread the word
that we were providing this
service.”
The fi rst newsletter Bur-
rows produced came out in
2003, two years after the
center was formed, and con-
tained old photos and other
information collected by
Burrows for the center.
“It was a four-page photo-
copy one that was mailed out
to members,” Highberger
said. “The newsletter just
started to evolve, but was
always between four to eight
pages, off a photocopier.”
In all, 39 editions of the
newsletter were produced
over the last 18 years. But
with the 20th anniversary of
the center approaching, there
was a feeling that it was time
for more.
After some studying to
fi nd the right printing com-
pany, the newsletter was
transformed.
“The fi rst one came out in
March, and we just received
from the printer yesterday
the second copy,” High-
berger said during a Thurs-
day, May 27, interview.
It’s at least double the
size of the newsletter. The
fi rst edition of the Quarterly
— the 40th overall — was
16 pages, and edition No. 41
was expanded to 20 pages.
Inside, it consists of photo-
graphs, maps, stories and
more.
“It depends on one, what
catches my interest, but two,
what Mary Ann gives me,”
Highberger said of decid-
ing on the content. “Not
very much time goes by, and
she’ll come up with a gem.”
“That will lead to a story,
depending on how much
VISIT US
ON THE
WEB
EastOregonian.com
material I can get on it. The
history center has a digital
online archive of all the his-
torical newspapers. It goes
back to the 1870s.”
The latest edition has a
piece about a now-defunct
town that once stood north
of Lostine.
“The current one has
a lead story about a town
called Evans,” Highberger
said.
Burrows said she was
more than pleased with the
eff ort Highberger put into
the Quarterly.
“I think it’s wonder-
ful. I’m very pleased with
the Quarterly,” she said.
“And we have had great
response for it, too. Mark
is such a good writer. We
worked together earlier, he
printed some little books.
… I really like it. I think it’s
wonderful.”
The cost of a member-
ship has doubled — $10 now
as opposed to $5, but that
includes getting the Quar-
terly delivered four times
a year. The magazine itself
sells for $10.
History center’s vision for a
new home coming to fruition
Site, exhibit plan
for the center
should be in
place by July 1
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
WALLOWA — The
Wallowa History Center’s
vision for its new home is
moving closer to reality.
Board President David
Weaver said last week the
center will have its site plan
and exhibit plan for the
four-building home of the
center at 1st and Madison
streets in Wallowa by next
month, and at that point,
they can move to the next
step of restoring the old
Forest Service buildings
and converting them into a
history hub.
“By July 1, we’ll have
all those products, and then
we’ll start chipping away
at moving forward with
that bigger plan,” Weaver
said. “It’s a long-term pro-
cess. We’ll start looking at
which pieces we want to
tackle, and start the capital
fundraising. We’re four to
fi ve years out. So we’ll start
doing some of the identifi ed
restoration work.”
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The center began leas-
ing the property — which
includes four buildings —
from the city about three
or four years ago, Weaver
said. Previously, it had
been deeded to the Forest
Service.
“This was the Bear-Sled
Ranger District,” Weaver
said.
Among the features of
the center’s home once it is
complete will be a research
library for individuals to
dig — both online and
through print resources —
through history of the city.
There also will be an inter-
pretive center.
For now, though, getting
some of the basics taken
care of on-site is the focus.
“The stages that we have
been in now, we sort of
have the collection moved
in there and set up shop
for that, and did the elec-
trical work, and the plump-
ing work, installation (and
a) new exterior window,”
Weaver said of the build-
ing that previously served
as the ranger’s offi ce and
will be where the research
library is.
Weaver said the hope is
that when the center is com-
plete, Weaver said it will be
a location that doesn’t take
away from the Wallowa
County Museum, but that
makes photos, artifacts and
more accessible.
“Our plan is basically
to have a timeline around
Wallowa history in this
building centered around
natural resources,” he said.
“It won’t be a museum,
because we already have
a good museum, and it’s
great up there.”
Mary Ann Burrows, the
center’s director, in addi-
tion to having a location for
history memorabilia, wants
to see the buildings restored
to what they once were.
“The house is in really
bad shape,” she said. “It is
going to take multiple years
to complete the project
because there is so much
work that needs to be done.
It’s an addition to our area
for people that are inter-
ested in history.”