FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
Walden’s
legacy
Greg Walden has effectively advocated for the
beliefs of a majority of his constituents during his
nearly 21 years representing Baker County and the
rest of the 2nd Congressional District, which covers
all of Oregon east of the Cascades. Walden an-
nounced Monday that he won’t run for a 12th term in
the 2020 election.
Some examples that illustrate Walden’s support for
the interests of his district:
• In 2012, when the Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest proposed to ban motor vehicles from about
3,600 miles of roads, Walden, responding to wide-
spread opposition, including from Baker County resi-
dents, sent a letter to Forest Service offi cials urging
the agency to withdraw the proposal. That happened
about a month later.
• Walden has been a consistent advocate for vari-
ous legislation, some of which has become law and
some that hasn’t, intended to reduce the wildfi re
danger on public lands in his district and across the
West, in part by increasing the amount of commercial
logging.
• In 2008 Walden, to the chagrin of some Republi-
cans, voted for the $700 billion fi nancial bailout bill,
in part because it included an extension of the federal
program that compensates counties, including Baker,
for the loss of property tax revenue due to large
amount of federal land within their borders (the feds
don’t pay property taxes). That program is crucial to
Baker County’s ability to maintain its roads.
• Walden has staunchly defended Ash Grove Ce-
ment Co., a major employer in Baker County, against
proposed federal emissions standards that put the
Durkee plant in jeopardy.
• Walden has been a leader in Congress in working
to curb the epidemic of opioid abuse.
Some Republicans worry that Walden’s retirement
creates an opportunity for a Democratic candidate
to represent the 2nd District for the fi rst time since
1980. But Walden’s record of easily winning re-elec-
tion is strong evidence that District voters will send
to Washington, D.C., a Republican who respects, as
Walden has, their values.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
OTHER VIEWS
Speak up on forest fees, permits
Editorial from The (Eugene)
Register-Guard:
Anyone who enjoys hiking or camp-
ing in Oregon’s national forests should
take a minute to comment on a proposed
permit and fee system that will make it
harder to spontaneously decide to spend
a sunny Saturday in the woods. It’s far
from clear that the folks who will run the
program have fi gured out how to make
it the seamless experience it needs to be.
Under the proposal, some of the most
popular trailheads in the state will have
caps on use and fees for those lucky
enough to get a permit. The permit
system will apply to trailheads in the
Deschutes and Willamette National For-
ests. Specifi cally, they’ll hit the Central
Cascades wilderness areas, including
Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington,
Three Sisters, Waldo Lake and Dia-
mond Peak.
The U.S. Forest Service proposes
charging $3 a person for day-use per-
mits on 19 trailheads and $5 per person
a night on all 79 trailheads in the speci-
fi ed areas. There also would be process-
ing fees on top of that.
Make no mistake, limiting access
to the trails is necessary. They have
become victims of their own popular-
ity. As more people hike or camp, they
cause more harm to these irreplace-
able natural spaces. Most people don’t
willfully abuse the forests, but a few bad
actors leave behind human and animal
waste and cause other damage. Even
those with the purest “leave no trace”
intentions are not harmless. Thousands
of steps on a trail wear it down, widen-
ing the trail and creating opportunities
for erosion.
Most of the money that the fee
program raises — 80% to 90% of it —
will go into forest maintenance and
restoration. Think of it as a user fee.
Sure, it would be great if the federal
government funded national forests
and other federal lands well enough
to fully preserve them and keep them
accessible, but that hasn’t happened in
decades. User fees are common.
Letters to the editor
We welcome letters on any issue of
public interest. Letters are limited
to 350 words. Writers are limited
to one letter every 15 days. Writers
must sign their letter and include
an address and phone number (for
verifi cation only). Email letters to
news@bakercityherald.com
But the permits and fees need to work
as seamlessly as possible. Too many
questions remain about how the Forest
Service will implement the program.
How far in advance will permits go on
sale? How will offi cials ensure equitable
access to them? Will there need to be a
lottery for the most popular weekend
days? How many passes will be held for
people to be able to hike spontaneously?
We suspect more people decide to hike
or camp for a couple of nights spontane-
ously when the weather is nice than
plan it months in advance.
It’s important, too, to think about
these questions broadly. Hiking and
camping are for more than just Orego-
nians. The Forest Service must develop
effective communication strategies to
get the word out to visitors from other
states. If tourists become disgruntled
because they didn’t know they
wouldn’t be able to hike to the top of
South Sister, the state’s reputation as a
great destination could take a hit.
The Forest Service has smart people
developing this plan, but they need to
hear from users if they’re to fi nd a man-
agement strategy that will work. Check
out all the details online and share your
thoughts before the comment period
closes Nov. 25.
Baker’s history lurks in some unexpected spots
Some pieces of Baker City’s
history haven’t been exposed to
sunlight for decades.
Or been seen by any eyes except
perhaps the beady ones of a mouse
or a spider.
I’m writing here not of memora-
bilia tucked into cardboard boxes
or trunks and then forgotten for a
couple generations in the musty
corner of an attic or basement.
The items I mean have been
hidden, and not necessarily by
intention, in places where not even
a curious child, bored on some af-
ternoon when a chilly wind makes
it unpleasant to play outside, would
likely come across them.
The recesses I refer to are the
spaces behind the walls, the places
we don’t as a rule see unless we’re
remodeling or we’ve had the mis-
fortune of busting a water pipe or
driving a nail into a wire.
A couple of recent experiences
prompted me to consider this trove
of, well not necessarily treasure,
but at least compelling fi nds.
In one case the owner of a south
Baker City home, while remodeling
the structure, discovered that the
walls had been lined with newspa-
pers from 1902.
Most of these issues were from
the St. Louis Republic, but a few
pages had been plucked from the
Baker City Herald.
I suppose we can be thankful
that fi berglass insulation wasn’t
invented until the early 1930s.
JAYSON
JACOBY
Prior to its widespread availabil-
ity, builders, if they insulated walls
at all, used a variety of materials
for the purpose, newspapers being
a common — and obviously readily
available and cheap — option.
Sometimes this simple insula-
tion was in the form of shredded
newsprint, which, in addition to
making ideal bedding for rodents,
is pretty effective at keeping out
frigid drafts.
But in other cases workers sim-
ply hung sheets on the walls.
It happens that the space be-
tween the inner and outer walls is
a relatively hospitable environment
for newsprint — hardly the most
robust stuff, to be sure.
The 1902 issues of the Herald
that the homeowner uncovered
bear a few minor water stains
but are otherwise intact. They’re
perfectly legible, in any case.
Newspapers published 117 years
ago are for me endlessly fascinating
documents.
I particularly enjoy the adver-
tisements, which seem to me to
betray the passage of time more
blatantly than the articles do.
A 1902 reader of the Herald, for
instance, would have been enticed
by such products as Dr. Coe’s Elec-
tric Catarrh Balm, free samples of
which were available at Levinger’s
Drug Store.
(Catarrh, a term you won’t often
run across these days, basically
means a stuffed up nose, although
it was commonly used to describe
what we would today call hay
fever.)
Readers also could learn about
Shiloh’s Consumption Cure and
choose from multiple purveyors of
a product we wouldn’t today deign
to spend money on unless we were
going camping — ice.
Newspapers aren’t the only
artifacts, though, that can end up
in the forgotten crannies of our
homes.
Richard Taie told me recently
about an eclectic bunch of items he
and his wife, Bonnie, found while
replacing the fi replace in their
Myrtle Street home in 2000.
(Bonnie Taie died in December
2014 at age 73.)
Richard said he decided to
replace the fi replace, which was
built around 1929, because he and
Bonnie had begun to smell smoke
when a fi re was kindled.
He examined the fi replace and
found that its supports were failing,
causing the fi replace to slump and
pull away from the wall, and al-
lowing woodsmoke to seep into the
couple’s home.
During the replacement he and
Bonnie found more than a dozen
things on the fl oor behind the
fi replace. So far as Richard could
tell, they had fallen through gaps
between the fi replace and the wall
rather than placed there, as if in a
time capsule.
The items include a note to
customers of Baker Loan & Trust
Co. offering them a 1930 calendar
for free, pencils bearing the name of
Silven’s Laundry and Dry Clean-
ing, and an invoice, dated October
15, 1929, for several books pur-
chased by the St. Stephen’s Church
School.
There is a matchbook listing
four lodging establishments — the
Baker Hotel, the Washington Hotel
in Pullman, Washington, Ever-
green Hotel in Vancouver, Wash-
ington, and Lithia Springs Hotel in
Ashland.
There is a shotgun shell, a con-
tainer of wooden matches, a small
light bulb of the sort that might fi t
a table lamp or wall sconce, a few
metal washers, a button, several
sewing needles and a single play-
ing card (it’s a joker, which suggests
somebody might have lost out on
a potentially lucrative hand when
the card went missing).
Perhaps the most notable item
in the collection — and in my eyes
the most poignant — is a program
for a piano recital presented by the
pupils of Birdie Bushnell on the
Friday evening of May 29, 1931.
I can say with a fair amount of
certainty that many of those at-
tending might have dispensed with
a jacket on that night 88 years ago.
The recital started at 8 p.m., but
the temperature that day topped
out at 79 degrees at the KBKR
radio station, where weather data
were collected from 1928 until
1981.
The young pianists performed
at Nevius Hall, which was south of
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, on
First Street off Broadway.
Phyllis Badgley wrote about
Nevius Hall in one of her historical
articles published in the Herald.
The building was used for many
purposes, Phyllis wrote, with piano
recitals being a prominent example.
Phyllis wrote that she remem-
bered practicing on the Hall’s Stein-
way grand piano, which is also men-
tioned in the 1931 recital program.
She listed several piano teachers,
among them Birdie Bushnell.
Richard showed me the display
that Bonnie made of the items they
found behind their fi replace. I fi nd it
fascinating.
And as I ponder the dozens
of homes and other buildings in
Baker City that predate Richard’s, it
strikes me how likely it is that other
compelling glimpses into our city’s
history lie in darkness, awaiting the
whack of a sledgehammer or the
slice of a saw to reveal themselves
and tell their long-hidden tales.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.