Medford
Tribune
Second Section
MEDFORD, OREGON, TUESDAY JUNE 27, 1950
Pages 1-6
EiTOFTUCVirCODS
By sT'n Zfeeens
Tim and Trees
We sat there on a log that had
been a seedling over 1,200 years
ago. Billy Entwistle, once a bull
team logger, helped a 9-year-old
Cub scout nail up a "Keep
Green" sign on the dead forest
giant, and I thought about the
meaning of time. Around the
log were firs and hemlocks about
20 years old.
We were all out in the woods
to help start the wheels rolling
on a campaign to get people to
thinking of the danger ahead in
the holidays that will run from
Friday, June 30, through to the
last shot of fireworks on the
night of the "Fourther July."
Fire danger. We were in the
midst of an area that contained
75,000 acres of second and third
growth forest, practically all of
it logged between 1910 and
1940.
i Through it all fishing streams
ran. There were hiking trails and
oamplng sites. Roads webbed the
area. Travelers through it would
number thousands in the July
1-4 holidays.
Billy Entwistle was telling the
Cub scouts that they should live
to see the greater part of the
75,000 acres logged all over
again.
'Give the trees time." said Billy
Entwistle. "Time and no fire.'
No Sun
"Once upon a time." said Bil
ly Entwistle, "our summers here
were all fires and no sun. In the
summers of the 1870s and the
1880s, when I was a boy and
then a young logger, the people
of western Washington seldom
saw the run on the Fourth of
July or on any other summer
day. All summer hundreds of
forest fires were kept burning. In
heaviest rain they would smolder
and the smoke would die down.
Rainy spell over, we'd have the
twilight of smoke again."
"Was it the Indians who burn
ed the forests all the summers?"
asked one of the Cubs. "I heard
at school the Indians burned for
ests to make better hunting
grounds."
"You heard something wrong,
son," said Billy Entwistle. 'The
Indians did not set the fires that
hid the summer sun in those
times and killed so many of the
lowland forests, which had the
. biggest and best trees of all. The
' Indians had been here for at
least 10,000 years, the scientists
declare, before the 1870s, when
the great summer burnings be
gan. Prospectors, ranchers,
stockmen, homesteaders, hunt
ers, all white, fired the forests
to clear them out for their own
purposes.
"No one dreamed that timber
could ever become scarce. Of all
things trees were the cheapest.
White men burned wonderful
forests just to make trails for
easier travel. Many traveled the
waterways by boat and canoe,
camping overnight on the
beaches. If their beach fires
started forest fires, no one was
concerned.
" 'Let 'em burn,' they said.
Tires do no harm. Too many
trees, anyway.'
'Is it any wonder that the sun
did not shine in the summertime?
But never blame the Indians,
who loved their home country,
for the fires of other days."
First Warden
It seemed a long while back,
even to me, and to the Cubs a
time much farther away the
1870s. Billy Entwistle is now
85. His father was a California
'49er who found no gold and
came to Fuget Sound as a sol
dier under General George Brin
ton McClellan in the Indian wars
of the early 1850s. Billy was
born in the region in 1864. By
1878 he was greasing skids for
a bullteam logging show. In
1906 he was working for fest fire
prevention, . posting trail signs
that simply ordered "No Fire."
In 1908 he became the first offi
cial fire warden of the Pacific
northwest.
Retired from active fire-fighting,
Billy Entwistle still likes to
go to the woods with youngsters
and tell them interesting .and
useful facts of forest life.
So 'there we sat and listened
to history of the old days in the
timber, and I thought how they
were not old days, after all
here was this log of a tree that
was a windfall in the logging
of 25 years ago. Twelve hundred
years of age. Yet our native In
dians could look 10,000 years
back beyond the tree in their
own history in this forest region.
The poster put up by the Cub
scout read, "Look to the Future.
Keep the Forests Green." Time
is how you see it.
County Budget Hearing
Set Wednesday, M a.m.
Taxpayers will get a chance
Wednesday to tell the county
budget committee what they
think of the proposed 1950-51
budget for Jackson county.
The committee, composed of
M. T. Wray, Roger F. Rath. Ar
nold Bohnert, Judge J. B. Cole
man, and Commissioners R. R.
Lytle and L. G. "Shy" Morth
land, has drawn up a budget
calling for total expenditures
during the next fiscal year of
$1,595,358.55. The levy on prop
erty owners will be $541,751.35,
and the budget is within the six
per cent limitation. The budget
hearing will be held at 11 a.m.
(DST) Wednesday in the county
court chambers at the courthouse.
Redmond, Ore., June 27 'U.R)
Construction of a central Oregon
district hospital was approved by
a special bond election in Red
mond Friday. The hospital was
favored 478 to 169. .
Goodbye Heartburn
-Hello TUMS!
Quick relief for mir ftomach.
at, acid ifiaigcmoa.
Mill onlv 1
(Aant Tdevhoto)
BATTLE OF THE BULGES Anne Sterling (left), Hollywood actress,
whose overflowing curves give television censors the heeble-Jeebles,
has challenged New York Actress Paye Emerson (right) to a "Battle
of Plunging Necklines." The green-eyed sweater girl said she's
ready to confront Miss Emerson "any place she names" to settle the
squabble over which bosomy beauty first Introduced the daring
decolletage to television.
Grand Junction, Colo. U.R)
Purchasing and processing of
uranium ores found in the
Marysville area of Utah is being
stepped up. The Atomic Energy
Commission is planning expan
sion of its facilities, Including
construction of a new ore pur
chasing station and a new pro
cessing plant to handle the au
tunite-torbernite ores found in
the Marysville deposits.
Man Injured in Jeep j
Wreck, Hospitalized
Guy Rawles, Humbug creek,
received serious but undeter
mined head Injuries this morn
ing in a jeep accident in the
Humbug area. Apparently alone,
the victim walked to a nearby
mill where he was further in
jured by striking his head on
a log when he fell into the mill
pond during a lapse in con
sciousness, reports said.
Men working at the mill res
cued Rawles from the pond and
took him to the Mitchell sanitar
ium in Jacksonville. Tentative
ly identified as a veteran, au
thorization was said to have
been given to send Rawles to
Portland for treatment there.
The Mercy Flights ambulance
plane was ready to fly him
north when word came through
that he was ineligible for veter
an hospitalization in Portland.
He was taken to Sacred Heart
hospital by Conger-Morris am
bulance early this afternoon.
Patrol Blames 2 Fires
On Firecracker Use
State forest patrolmen said
that firecrackers were the cause
of a four-acre fire yesterday
evening at Hillcrest and North
Phoenix roads and a spot fire
near the patrol headquarters on
Table Rock road.
A grass fire behind the Myron
Root company box storage shed,
46 South Fir street, about
1 p. m. yesterday, resulted in no
damage, city firemen said. Fire
men were called to the Pear
Bowl cafe, 213 West Main street,
about 1:45 p. m. yesterday, when
grease burned under a gas
range.
Portland, Or., Junt Vt (U.F9
Roy T. Bishop, 69, on of the
leaders of Oregon's wool Indus
try, died her Saturday.
BAKER GETS CONVENTION
Portland, Or., Jun 27 (U.R)
Tha 1950 convention of the Ore
gon young republicans will be
held at Baker September 8-4 H
was annaunced by Vera Me
Callum, new Oregon chairman,
today.
THAT REMINDS ME-fVE GOT TO You, too, will enjoy smooth, sociable j& I
BUY A 80TTIE Of SCHIMIIY y -4W
"VcCc ' fll TRY IT. TOO.I ""
, SrlOl)LOHAE$ENt3 3 45 Qt. Jj
LONG AGO. ITS REALLY A SMOOTH. FgS 0 25 JtfW Vnil Jm
SOCIABLE DRINK. EVERY DROP PCS Pinf &&!$f ll'l
i ES riche jjp 'if
lilMWlliitk, Jf ."t d aCIN,NEtn'At,SPHlT5jSCHtWEYJPIST.INCy;Nl..C
. ' m 1 1
rrfL'iCfSl II
"
- " J " J OWV SWlf FSTAKES WINNER, GRAND CANYON ICONOMY RUN
MEDFORD MOTORS
6th & Ivy
Phone 2-6157
r THI TUMMY