Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1974)
$1.67 million payroll here Kinzua is meeting the needs of tomorrow Current employment figures for Kinzua Corporation show 188 employees at Heppner, 300 employees at Kinzua and 17 employees at Spray. The corporation payrolls for 1973 set a new high, $170,831 at Spray, $1,677,502 at Heppner and $3,117,573 at Kinzua. In addition, $1,400,056 was paid to indepen dent logging contractors in the four-county area. Later this spring, the factory operations at Kinzua will be curtailed. Forty-three employees will be affected by the curtailment and these employees will be offered jobs at Kinzua, Spray or Heppner. One hundred and twenty new employees will be required in Heppner for the plywood plant which is expected to start operations in May 1974. Kinzua Corporation is entering its 65th year of tree farming in Eastern Oregon with renewed interest in its tree farming City warned of crime increase Police Chief Dean Gilman told the Heppner Common Council Monday night that local crime is on the increase and "The days of leaving doors open are over." Gilman reported that within Ihe past few weeks police officers stopped an attempted burglary at Heppner Elemen tary School. Saturday night persons attempted to enter Cornet t Green's Feed Store by prying open the outer door. They left the scene, apparent ly frightened by passing vehicles. Early Monday morning someone broke into Pettyjohn's Hardware Store by a side door, went overhead into the loft and dropped down inside the main building. They forced open two sliding doors, which touched off the burglar 'Six months to live;' or, How B LIZ CURTIS The year is 1924. You're 25 years old and the doctor has just given you three or four months to live. What do you do? If you're Clyde Nutting of Heppner and already have a wide reputation as a steeple jack, wrestler, boxer and automobile racer, you try to cram a lifetime of living into this short time by doing whatever daredevil stunt is best calculated to get you killed, and quickly. cr"-'- "W IT - ill v - f Vol.90, No. alarm. The alarm awakened resi dents in the area who saw one person run toward a waiting car, enter on the passenger side, and speed north on Highway 74. Gilman warned the council not to forget recent thefts at Thomson's Market and the $1,100 theft at Court Street Market. Better security measures must be taken, he said. He plans to talk with merchants and see if plans can be made to thwart other breakins. Hon Palmer, Wagon Wheel Restaurant owner, appeared to get clarification on the city's charge for water used by his tenant, Harry O'Don nell. The water, Palmer said, runs through his meter. O' Clyde But for a man trying to kill himself, Nutting is a miser able failure. He's 75 now, alert and apparently reconciled to living forever. Nutting has "fight." He says he's 5'8" and never weighed over 150 pounds. At age 15 he classed himself somewhat of a midget, weighing 95 pounds. Perhaps there's something in the name Nutting, which when traced back to its English origin means "ready to meet any challenge." Maybe it's as Nutting himself flatly states, "I never had a fear in my life; Clyde Nutting at the wheel of a 1925 Flint 60 touring car. In it he made the first run from Los Angeles to Yosemite Valley, delivering the first Sunday Los Angeles Times ever to arrive there "on Sunday." activities. Early years were spent in acquiring timber holdings; recent years in updating existing plants and building new small log facilities to handle the second growth stands of this area. Kinzua is now an active member of the local Soil and Water Conservation Dis tricts. Experimental plots have demon strated an urgent need for the same kind of crop land practices as those used by farmers in this area. A summary of Kinzua 's farming activities for the last three years includes the following: 770 acres thinned; 2,420 acres brush piled; 24,432 acres seeded with 163,350 pounds of grass seed'; 86,000 trees planted; and 30 ponds constructed. The company has learned much from these programs. Results, together with cost accounting, have shown startling gains in tree growth and range land (SAZBTT 51 Donncll doesn't have a separ ate water meter. Ex-Mayor Bill Collins ex plained that many Heppner buildings have a single meter that serves more than one customer. At the time meters were installed property own ers did not want separate meters because of the cost of the connection, which a mounts to $285 per customer. To accommodate property owners and prevent tearing up Main, Street,,, many dual meters were installed at such places at the Masonic Build ing, Odd Fellows Lodge, the post office and other down town buildings. . Palmer asked, "As long as Mr. O'Donnell is my tenant, if 1 1 want to give him free water Nutting outlived still don't." Living danger ously came naturally. His father was a well-known steeplejack in Portland in the early 1920s, and Nutting himself made his first ascent, at the age of 131 2, climbing the old Jewish Synagogue in Portland. He claims to have climbed most every flag pole in Portland. His boxing career began in 1914 at the age of 16, in the old Portland Armory. When he was about 20 he had to give up boxing for awhile because he was hurt racing a motorcycle Heppner, Ore., Gazette-Times, Thursday, Feb. 7, 1974 mmm and sewer service, would the city have any objections?" Mayor Sweeney referred the matter to the utilities com mission, and promised Palm er an answer at the next council meeting. (The city has determined that Palmer uses approxi mately 13,000 gallons of water per month and should have a deduction of 1,000 gallons of water per month for his tenant. However, he has never received this discount, which , amounts to 10 cents per month.) In other business the council heard the first reading for a transfer of $7,000 from the flood control fund to the general fund to pay engineer ing fees. Public notice will be published and a public hearing on the Rose City Speedway in Portland. He continued wrest ling throughout the North west, however. News clip pings of his matches refer to him as " 'Red' Nutting, the Gresham wrestler." Several articles tell of his match with the 1924 Olympic welterweight champion, Robin Reed. The match was a draw. In 1920 his first airplane ride was taken outside the aircraft doing stunts on the craft as the plane flew under the old Kelso Bridge over the Cowlitz River in Southwest Washington. In 1923, Nutting went to work as a mechanic for the Durant Motor Company fac tory in Portland. Weekends he 'steeple jacked for his father, wrestled and raced. "I never had H nit;, Mill uuu i. By 1924 he was sales manager of used cars for Durant, making $375 a month plus 1 per cent of gross sales. Life was his oyster. But in August of that year he was flat on his back with a kidney disease, and that's where he stayed until March, 1925. The doctors said his illness was caused by too much alcohol. A questionable diagnosis con sidering that Nutting didn't drink. He was brought to the Durant office and asked where he'd like to go. He said he wanted to go where it was hot, maybe Phoenix. His boss told him that was too hot; L.A. would be better. "So when I got down there," Nutting recalls, "I got to thinking what management where aggressive soil dis turbance has taken place. Currently, Kinzua is following the Eastern Oregon practice of summer fallowing strips of land to be planted with trees the following year. This assures enough moisture for the critical first season of growth. It is using range disc plows to break up impacted soil on existing tree farm areas and building ponds and lakes wherever water can be found. The Soil Conservation Service is preparing several ranch plans for its holdings. Current projects are those of picking seed, and growing superior seed from its own tree farm ; a 3,600 acre resource plot above Fossil; a new county park on Highway 19 adjacent to the resource plot; and an exchange with the U.S. Forest Service of 5,600 acres of Kinzua land within National Forest boundaries for Forest Service holdings within and adjacent to E-TIMES will be held March 4 to approve the transfer. A variance was approved for Bill Scott, 605 Morgan St., along with a building permit for lot 5 of the Lott-Rassmus-sen Addition. Bert Corbin, public works superintendent, told the coun cil he had talked with Mrs. Jim Hager in regard to the clean-up required of the Hager property on Main Street, and the Hagers have decided to comply with the city ordi nance and remove rubble left by the fire two years ago rather than have the city do it and assess the cost to the owners. Corbin said a party is interested in installing 26 new water service connections in the vicinity of the Van Winkle a fool I was to work for little or nothing when I could get big money hard drivin'. I had the guts. You could name any thing silly and I'd do it." He raced cars and ran economy runs for Durant. On the side he did movie stunt work at $100 an hour on airplanes, in cars or anywhere for anyone who wanted a show and wanted to pay. "I was supposed to die," he quipped, "Instead of dying, why; I could take chances and it didn't make any difference whether I died or not, and I took these awful chances and when I took them I could win; couldn't lose, and made money at it." Nutting recalls that Durant Motor Company, then manu- a fear in my facturer of Star, Durant, Flint, Peerless and Locomo bile cars, did all sorts of crazy stunts to advertise the cars. The man doing those "crazy" things was Clyde Nutting. Among his memorabilia are pictures and news clippings of the Flint 60 touring car he terms his favorite. The stories tell of his trip from Los Angeles to Yosemite in the Flint. For the first time in history the Yosemite Valley had the Sunday paper on Sunday. Nutting had his car loaded clown with copies of the Los Angeles Times and made the grueling trip in 11 hours and five minutes. He says he would use up a set of tires in two or three weeks doing stunts and making runs with Motel to service trailer pads. Feasibility of the installations was referred to the utilities commission, in case plans for a trailer park in that area develop. The council felt that sup plying the motel with other water services would not be feasible at this time because, although there is plenty of water, it would reduce fire protection in the city. Mayor Sweeney concluded the meeting by reading letters from Cong. Al Ullnian and Sen. Mark Hatfield pledging their support of Willow Creek Dam, and asking the Corps of Engineers for immediate action and relocation of the city's water lines and installa tion of water mains in the dam construction area. his doctor that car. "Used the best tires too." The Waterman Canyon Road was 22 miles of con trolled hell, as he tells it, running from San Bernardino to Arrowhead Lake. He insists "no one could do it and be in their right mind, but I made it on speed and insanity." In a race, which included Racer Eddie Rickenbacker, among others, Nutting won by one hour and 55 minutes. He drove wide open, between 80 and 90 miles an hour. The record has never been broken, he said. He tells about Durant's son, I 7mr3c; .... ns vvj. - ..-.j.. 1 "n n"1" ' ' """" Kinzua lands. To encourage similar activities on privately owned ranch lands in this area, Kinzua's recent mill improvements and log handling techniques enable it to offer the following programs: 1. Light equipment to remove entire trees with a 9-inch and larger diameter and an average height of 28-feet at competitive prices on a selective stand improvement basis. 2. Full compliance with the Forest Practices Act and the new Slash Liability Act. 3. Co-operative stand improvement and reseeding programs with the rancher and local conservation agencies. 4. Removal of all dead material for use in salvage operations. Kinzua Corporation welcomes visitors to its tree farm and inquiries about the programs. 1 5c Agencies plan for area growth Local representatives from state and county government, civic organizations and others met last week at the county court house to discuss ways to coordinate activities, con serve energy and offer better services to the area. Ideas expressed include planning for expected growth, meeting needs of citizens in all areas of the county, com munication of plans for pro grams being conducted by various departments, possi bilities of consolidation of transportation or car pools for those traveling between north and south areas of the county, and how each department can more efficiently meet the demands caused by growth. Judge Paul Jones served as coordinator for the planning Cliff, who had a Miller Straight 8 that was supposed to do 130 miles .per hour. He asked Nutting to try it out. Nutting ran it up to 148 miles an hour on the old Culver City Streetway at Culver City. The stories go on. One is impressed by Nutting's knowledge of old cars, inside and out, and what each car was capable of doing. His head is filled with tricks employed on economy runs and in stunt driving. He relates how he would pick out a car, go into the Durant office and ask for some money to take a trip. Nutting and his dog, Puddles. session to investigate all possibilities of providing more efficient service to the people of Morrow County. Among those present at the meeting were Gene Trumbull, John Jepsen, David Mitchum, Marlene Peterson, Rev. Ed win Cutting, Birdine Tullis, Carolyn Davis, Dr. Wallace Wolff, Mary Rogers, and Del Smith. Plans were formulated for an inter-agency meeting to be held bi-monthly or quarterly so that all agencies may participate. The first meeting is planned for sometime in February at Boardman. The program is being de veloped because of increased demands on all agencies and service groups due to growth in the county. Then he'd start out and give the car "the works." He could make bets against other cars and the company backed him. It was all for advertising, he says. He made two "three-flag runs," non-stop from Canada to Mexico. One of his best stories is about his first parachute jump which took place in California. "A guy called up and wanted to know if I'd come down and make a jump for some kind of picnic for $350." Nutting agreed. He'd never had a parachute on, and Continued on page 10
