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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2001)
april i, 2001 Smoke Signals 11 One of a Kind House Moved to the Oregon Gardens I m. " V I'. 5 ' - i B - ' a - . - .-,'-... ...Is on the Move! , ttui it U Endangered House is Saved The Gordon House, a one-of-a-kind structure designed by the famed archi tect Frank Lloyd Wright, was saved from destruction recently when it was moved to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. The largest section of the structure (shown at left) was moved down High way 99 and Highway 214 on its way to Silverton drawing crowds of onlookers and media. The Oregon Gardens received a $266,000 grant from the Tribe's Spirit Mountain Community Fund in late 1999. Courtesy Photo ! ' Structure was designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. By Willie Mercier SILVERTON, OR. - Nestled among the tranquil gardens, peaceful streams and serene groves in the Silverton-based Oregon gar dens, you will find a new addition to the complex. The latest compliment to the Gar den is not a rare plant, but rather a timeless piece of American archi tecture the Gordon House. The Gordon House; designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957 is the only build ing in Oregon designed by Wright. He designed over 400 buildings throughout the world. The house was originally built for Conrad and Evelyn Gordon and was completed in 1963, four years after Wright died. The house was destined for destruction when Mr. and Mrs. David Smith recently purchased the home that was located on the banks of the Willamette River near the Charbonneau district. The Smiths paid $1.1 million for the home and 22 acres of property. The couple had planned on demolishing the house to make way for a new home. '" Instead the couple donated the house, with the condition that it be moved by March 15th of this year, to the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy of Chicago, which is dedicated to the preservation of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. According to the Wright Conser vancy website, one of every five of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings has been destroyed. Wright was famous for using materials that are native to the area that he was designing in. He chose to use cinder blocks and cedar for the Gordon House. The conservancy then sold the house to the Oregon Garden and the City of Silverton, which final ized the purchase and plans for the move just before the Smith's dead line for the house to be moved. The home was disassembled and moved in three trips from Wilson ville, Oregon to the Oregon Gar dens by truck at five miles per hour over a three-day period down High way 99 and then Highway 214 to Silverton. On Sunday, March 11, camera crews and city officials all came out to witness the truck that hauled in the last and biggest portion of the house, estimated to weigh 70 tons and measuring 69 feet long. After the trailer was pulled to where the house will be reassembled, the Mayor of Silverton and others that were responsible for saving the house, all gathered together for a toast of champagne. The house, which is scheduled for reassembly in a natural oak grove within the garden complex, will be completed in December of this year. Upon the completion of the Gordon House's reassembly, it will become the only Wright home in Oregon open to the public. The cost to get into the Oregon Garden, a 60-acre botanical gar den that opened last year, is $6 for adults and $3 for children. For more information call 503-874-8100 or toll free at 1-877-ORGARDEN, or check out their website at www.oregongarden.org. Chinooks Brace for Renewal as Tribal Status nears Final Approval It's a matter of power and money. Sometimes, an Indian's worst enemy is another Indian. - Cliff Snider, Chinook honorary Chief CHINOOK, WA. (AP) Oregon's Warm Springs Indians are pushing for a casino at Hood River, but Washington's newest Indian Tribe has shuffled its casino card to the bottom of the deck, looking first at health care and scholarships. "We'll look at all areas of economic development," said Chinook Tribal Chairman Gary Johnson. "But we haven't had a single meeting deal ing with casinos. Any talk in that direction is way too preliminary." After a 20-year legal fight, the Chinook the Tribe that saved Lewis and Clark from starvation at Station Camp on the Washington Coast during the winter of 1805 1806 received federal recognition of Tribal status on January 3. There is a 90-day waiting period be fore Tribal status is final on April 3. At that point, the Chinook will become America's 558th recognized Tribe, eli gible to set up an independent land base and economic structure. The Tribe's first act is setting up a scholarship foundation to send chil dren of 2000 Tribal members to col lege, Johnson said. Its second will be to join four other Tribes to improve Southwest Washington's Indian health care. "All plans for a casino are on the back burner," said Chinook honor ary Chief Cliff Snider, 75, of Port land. "We have health plans, edu cation plans, economic plans and museum plans. Just maybe, there may be a casino in the future." The Chinook primarily are inter ested in setting up a land base, re grouping scattered members and tak ing care of them, officials said. They've been splintered for a long time. After the Tribe signed a treaty in 1851 and Congress elected not to sign it, the Chinook lost their iden tity for more than a century. When the Tribe's population was decimated by malaria and smallpox, survivors were pushed with their tra ditional enemies, the Quinault, onto a single reservation. It was 75 miles north of the Tribe's traditional home, at Long Beach on Willapa Bay, to Taholah, north of Aberdeen. The Chinook were adopted by the Quinault. The Chinook fished and crabbed as Quinault and took own ership of more than half the 200,000 acres of allotments on the Quinault Reservation. But the Chinook, lumped in with eight other Tribes, had no separate identity. So Chinook leaders applied in 1981 to get their name back. They kept up the fight until they won this year. Now they are waiting for April 3, when final approval will bring federal money for education and health and the right to build a casino and fish as the Chinook under Indian rules. "April 3 is kind of secondary to us," said Johnson, 59, a longtime school counselor who also is Indian Educa tion Director in the South Bend public schools. "We're just moving forward." The Chinook may one day opt for a casino somewhere along Interstate 5, said Snider. "My dream is to have a Cowlitz casino right next to a Chi nook casino, so if you didn't like one, you'd then go into the other," he said, laughing. "And we want to have a reservation of our own on the Colum bia. This is my dream to buy land around the town of Chinook, and have a town like the Snohomish do entering that reservation." The Tribe's only office now stands in a rundown school building with a leaky roof in Chinook, southeast of Ilwaco near the Washington coast. The Chinook own only a half-acre in the area, at Ellis Point on the river. Johnson said the Tribe would like a better office and property in the Chi nook area, where it could accommo date more of its Tribal members. "As far as I'm concerned," said Snider, "all my relatives who have been adopted by the Quinault, we'll all come back to the Chinooks and swell the ranks, and all have fishing and crabbing rights of our own, so we won't have to deal with the Quinaults." Instead of Quinault Reservation land, Johnson said, the Tribe is "in terested in our traditional territories and maintaining and building our Tribal interests on the Columbia River and in Willapa Bay." But before Tribal approval comes in April, Chinook spokesmen said they expect the Quinault to raise le gal objections and attempt to derail their recognition, possibly delaying it again. "They'll spend a million dollars be tween here and there and they will file on the 89th day before we get recognition," predicted Snider. "But they'll have to come up with new things to say to win." The Quinault, fearful of losing Tribal enrollment and land, at tempted to prevent recognition by the Cowlitz. That Tribe was recognized just over a year ago. "It's a matter of power and money," said Snider, anticipating another fight. "Sometimes, an Indian's worst enemy is another Indian." "We'll be grateful for anything we get," said Johnson. "There are mon ies available through Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but as other Tribes will tell you, it is less than meets the needs of Tribal members." 1
