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