THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Thursday, May 27, the 147th day of 2021.
There are 218 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German bat-
tleship Bismarck off France with a loss of some 2,000
lives, three days after the Bismarck sank the HMS
Hood with the loss of more than 1,400 lives.
In 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal
circuit court judge in Baltimore, ruled that President
Abraham Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend the
writ of habeas corpus (Lincoln disregarded the ruling).
In 1933, the Chicago World’s Fair, celebrating “A Cen-
tury of Progress,” officially opened.
In 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge
connecting San Francisco and Marin County, Califor-
nia, was opened to pedestrian traffic (vehicles began
crossing the next day).
In 1942, Doris “Dorie” Miller, a cook aboard the USS
West Virginia, became the first African-American to
receive the Navy Cross for displaying “extraordinary
courage and disregard for his own personal safety”
during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1964, independent India’s first prime minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru, died.
In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v.
O’Brien, upheld the conviction of David O’Brien for
destroying his draft card outside a Boston courthouse,
ruling that the act was not protected by freedom of
speech.
In 1994, Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solz-
henitsyn returned to Russia to the emotional cheers of
thousands after spending two decades in exile.
In 1998, Michael Fortier, the government’s star
witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, was sen-
tenced to 12 years in prison after apologizing for not
warning anyone about the deadly plot. (Fortier was
freed in January 2006.)
In 2018, LeBron James reached his eighth straight
NBA Finals as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Boston
Celtics 87-79 in Game 7 of the semifinals.
Ten years ago: Astronauts Mike Fincke and Gregory
Chamitoff made history as the final spacewalkers of
NASA’s 30-year shuttle program, completing con-
struction of the International Space Station with the
smooth addition of an extension pole.
Five years ago: President Barack Obama became the
first American chief executive to visit Hiroshima, the
city where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb
during World War II .
One year ago: Protests over the death of George
Floyd in police custody rocked Minneapolis for a sec-
ond night, with some people looting stores and set-
ting fires. Protests spread to additional cities . The U.S.
surged past a milestone in the coronavirus pandemic,
with the confirmed death toll topping 100,000.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger is 98. Author John Barth is 91. Actor Lee
Meriwether is 86. Singer Bruce Cockburn is 76. South
Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is 74. Singer Siouxsie
Sioux is 64. Actor Peri Gilpin is 60. Rock musician Sean
Kinney (Alice In Chains) is 55. Actor Paul Bettany is 50.
Rock singer-musician Brian Desveaux (Nine Days) is 50.
Actor Jack McBrayer is 48. Rapper Andre 3000 is 46.
Rapper Jadakiss is 46. TV chef Jamie Oliver is 46. Actor
Michael Steger is 41. Actor Ethan Dampf is 27.
— Associated Press
2021
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
SPRUCE GOOSE’S
HISTORY, DIGITIZED
Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum seeks grant
to protect extensive archive of photos, documents
BY KEVIN HARDEN • Oregon Capital Bureau
I
f you think Howard Hughes’
plane the Spruce Goose is big (it
is, it really is), then try this on
for size: more than 1 million pieces
of paper — documents, blueprints,
original drawings and thousands of
photographs.
That’s what the Evergreen Avia-
tion and Space Museum in Yamhill
County holds in a stack of shelves,
file cabinets and cardboard tubes
related to construction of the giant
flying boat.
The museum hopes to get a state
grant to move the entire collection
into a new research facility, where
it would be stored in more ar-
chive-friendly shelves, photo boxes
and files. It also hopes to digitize
most of the collection so researchers
and the public can access it online.
“We don’t really have a proper
archive,” said Michelle Kaufman,
communications director for the
Stoller Wine Group in Dayton,
which owns the nonprofit muse-
um’s property along state Highway
18 about 45 minutes south of Port-
land. “We want a place where we
can really showcase it. Where peo-
ple can come and dig through the
records to do their research.”
Hughes’ H-4 Hercules is an engi-
neering marvel. It’s one of the larg-
est airplanes ever built. It’s bigger
than a Boeing 747.
The Spruce Goose is 218 feet
long, has a 320-foot wingspan and
is about 80 feet tall. It weighed
about 400,000 pounds and was
powered by eight Pratt and Whit-
ney Wasp Major 28-cylinder en-
gines. It was built to fly about 3,000
miles at nearly 20,000 feet, cruising
at 250 miles per hour.
Nearly 700 banker boxes full of
papers and photos related to the
plane’s construction arrived at the
McMinnville museum in February
1993 with the Spruce Goose after
a 1,055-mile journey from Long
Beach to Yamhill County. Since
then, museum volunteers have
worked to put the documents in
searchable order that could be use-
ful to researchers and hobbyists in-
terested in the plane and its history.
“Before they came to Oregon,
the files and boxes were in ware-
houses that were repositories for
everything,” said Lydia Heins, the
museum’s curator and collections
manager. “All of that paperwork
was just sent to warehouses as a his-
torical asset.”
Creating digital versions of the
documents and photos is a big deal.
According to Nicole Davis, supervi-
sory archivist for Seattle’s Museum
of Flight, putting the files and pho-
tos online turns the collection into
a global gem.
“While physical preservation and
cataloging of materials is a neces-
sary first step for accessibility, re-
quiring researchers to come on-site
to your research center places a big
burden on researchers,” Davis said.
“It limits accessibility to those who
can afford to travel to the museum.
… Having materials available on-
line also increase awareness of the
materials — now the materials
are findable with a Google search,
whereas materials that haven’t been
digitized are much more hidden.”
STAR-SPANGLED
BARGAIN DAYS!
Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum
More than 10,000 photographs of the Spruce Goose’s construction are housed at
the museum’s Hughes archives.
Davis said about 500 people visit
the Seattle museum’s research cen-
ter each year to search documents
and photos. The museum’s digital
collection gets about 80,000 hits
each year, she said.
In late April, Heins applied for
$7,500 in state funds through the
Oregon Parks and Recreation De-
partment’s Historic Museum grant
program. The museum plans to
match that with about $6,200 to
fund the nearly $14,000 archive
project. If approved, work would
begin in mid-July and probably be
finished by late April 2022.
Heins said it was the first time
the museum asked for grant money
to work on the Hughes archives.
Thirty-one large and small mu-
seums across the state applied for
grants. The Oregon Museum Grant
committee meets Thursday to re-
view and rank the proposals. Ore-
gon’s Heritage Commission meets
June 7 to approve funding for the
top proposals.
Vision for the future
Hughes’ gigantic H-4 Hercules
(he did not like the “Spruce Goose”
nickname) flew only once, on Nov.
2, 1947, for about a mile, 70 feet
above Southern California’s Long
Beach Harbor. It cost more than
$23 million to build in the 1940s —
probably around $200 million to-
day — and spent most of its life in
storage at a Long Beach pier.
Hughes designed and built the
plane as a wartime transport to
carry troops and material across
the ocean without fear of enemy
submarines. He began building it in
1942, using wood laminate instead
of aluminum, which was in short
supply.
The 1947 flight was a demon-
stration that the massive aircraft
could actually become airborne.
As World War II ended, Hughes
ran into trouble with a U.S. Senate
oversight committee digging into
wartime contracts. The commit-
tee was concerned about how the
more than $22 million the federal
government put into construction
of the massive plane was spent and
wanted Hughes held accountable.
By 1947, the Hercules was no
longer needed for military trans-
port. Hughes had spent millions of
his own money (along with federal
funds) building the plane. Hughes
told the Senate committee that if
the plane couldn’t fly, he would
leave the country.
The large aircraft’s construction
and modifications generated thou-
sands of files, blueprints, change
orders, drawings and photographs.
Since they arrived at the McMin-
nville museum 28 years ago, more
than a dozen volunteers have ded-
icated their time to preserving and
protecting the documents.
5 BIG DAYS!
Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday,Monday
10 AM ‘TIL 6 PM
EACH DAY
FAMOUS NAME BRANDS YOU KNOW AND
TRUST AT SENSATIONAL SAVINGS!
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bassett
Ekornes
Flexsteel
Jonathan Louis
Natuzzi
Serta
•
•
•
•
•
•
Simmons
Sleep Chest
Stressless
Tempur-Pedic
Ultra Comfort
Plus Many More!
EXTRA Staff Will Be On Hand
To Assist You!
SPECIAL CREDIT OFFER!
BUY $500 WORTH, $1,000 WORTH, EVEN
$5,000 WORTH WITH:
• NO DOWN PAYMENT
and
• NO INTEREST for UP
TO 24 FULL MONTHS!
Ask For Details At The Sale!
BANK CARDS ARE ALSO WELCOME!
www.mjacobsfurniture.com
541-382-5900
Bend River Promenade
• LIVING ROOMS!
• IN ALL SIZES!
• MOTION
• DINING ROOMS!
• BUNK BEDS!
• FURNITURE!
• BEDROOMS!
• COMPLETE ROOM
• LEATHER
• CHAIRS & ROCKERS!
• GROUPINGS!
• FURNITURE!
• RECLINERS!
• DESKS!
• CURIO CABINETS!
• TV CONSOLES!
• CHESTS!
• WALL UNITS!
• DINETTE SETS!
• LIFT CHAIRS!
• AND MUCH MORE!
• TABLES & LAMPS!
• GLIDER ROCKERS!
• ACCESSORIES!
• ENTERTAINMENT
• MATTRESS SETS
• CENTERS!
HURRY FOR BEST CHOICE!
WE’RE THE LARGEST “IN-STOCK” FURNITURE
STORES IN THE STATE OF OREGON!
SAVE 10%, 20%, 30%,
EVEN UP TO 60% OFF!
NOTICE TO BUYERS: To provide our customers with a safe
shopping experience, all CDC guidelines will be followed
and staff members will continue to practice physical
distancing.
FREE STATEWIDE
DELIVERY **
**On purchases over $999 or more.