A passenger train traveling to Pendleton in January of 1946 derailed east of Gibbon on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, killing two crew members and injuring two more. It was the most serious train accident for the local Union Pacific Railroad section in 20 years.
A dam break 22 miles west of Baker City in June of 1917 demolished the town of Rock Creek. No one was killed, but damage to buildings and livestock and crop losses ran into the thousands of do…
A penitentiary inmate returned to Pendleton in January 1971 to testify against a fellow prison escapee slashed his wrist and touched off a three-hour riot at the Umatilla County Jail. While da…
Divorces can be ugly. A Pendleton woman in January of 1954 discovered divorces can also be dangerous, after she was shot by the jealous wife of a neighbor.
Most people are familiar with the infamous Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. But another dastardly character, who showed up in…
Three local crew members died in a crash of a Lifeguard medical transport helicopter in December of 1986 near the Pendleton airport after the chopper was placed in a holding pattern for 20 minutes.
A flightless bird related to ostriches and rheas ruffled feathers in Pendleton after one of the birds escaped a pen twice in one day in August 1997, prompting calls from neighbors and a legal …
A deputy sheriff for Umatilla County gave a courtesy ride to a stranger in November 1928 — straight to the Umatilla County Jail.
On Dec. 28, 1939, a card was delivered to Pendleton resident Lorin Hecker by Andy Dalrymple, a railroad conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. Dalrymple said he found the card on the Portla…
In its heyday, the Meacham Hotel, built in 1897, was a welcome sight for weary travelers making their way through Eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains. In the early 1900s, freight and passenger tra…
A former Pendleton man who relocated to Alaska during its gold rush years struck it lucky in 1900 when partners in a company he was backing discovered gold in a creek basin at the foot of glac…
A telegram received by the East Oregonian in November of 1918 announced the armistice that ended hostilities during World War I. But the United Press had jumped the gun by four days.
A large hunting party endured a struggle for survival after a blizzard marooned them for 10 days in the snowbound wilderness in the Blue Mountains near Pomeroy, Wash., in November of 1945.
A group of 27 muscle-bound competitors gathered at the Blacksmith Tavern in Pendleton for an arm-wrestling tournament on July 27, 1977, pitting local amateurs against some stalwart veterans of…
A woman who took offense at being told to quiet down by the night clerk at Pendleton’s Bowman Hotel in October of 1911 didn’t need the help of a man to get her forceful message across, much to…
A Pendleton tradition came to an end when city officials decided not to move a warning siren to the new city hall complex in October 1996.
Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist, returned to his roots in October 1988 when his hometown of Condon, Ore., named the town’s airport after their most famous native son.
Lavelle Partlow, 92, went to be with the Lord July 31, 2018.
Pendleton High School’s normally tame female population put aside their minis, midis and maxis for oversized jerseys and pants on Oct. 12, 1970, to show their male counterparts just what girls…
A group of early-day Pendleton lawyers had a bit of fun at the expense of one of their own, according to a story in the Sept. 23, 1816 Round-Up Souvenir Program. What started as a practical jo…
Unusually low water in the Umatilla River in September 1952 led to the discovery of the body of a man missing for four years after escaping from police custody near the Eastern Oregon State Ho…
How much fire does it take to make coffee boil?
A 19-year-old Pendleton man received a once-in-a-lifetime birthday surprise from his music teacher in September 1974 while recovering from brain surgery.
Pendleton is famous world-wide for its iconic Round-Up, held the second week of September each year since 1910. Every year, a group of local beauties is chosen by the Round-Up Association to a…
A group of prospectors at a gold strike near Dale, Ore., in September of 1936 believed their claim was the fabled Blue Bucket Mine discovered by a pioneer family heading west on the Oregon Trail.
A quartet of youthful businessmen spent the summer of 1967 selling items of a distinctly creepy nature to their friends and neighbors on Pendleton’s North Hill.
A roaring fire of suspicious origin swept through wheat stubble north of Pendleton in August 1941, scorching a wide swath but causing little damage.
He may not have been a German, but a man showing no loyalty to the U.S. during the early days of World War I was shown the inside of the city jail when he badgered cavalry recruits training fo…
Youthful misunderstanding and misplaced pride caused a lifetime of regret for a man who had the chance to make the final years of Chief Joseph’s life happier. His descendants rectified the err…
A Hermiston confectionary store owner and sporting goods dealer reeled in a much larger prize than he was expecting on a fishing trip to Cold Springs Reservoir outside Hermiston in August of 1919.
An explosion ripped through a blacksmith’s shop west of Pendleton on July 16, 1907, leaving two brothers badly burned and the shop incinerated.
A new air terminal building was dedicated at the Pendleton airport in June of 1953, but some rascally rodents were determined to make things tough for air traffic controllers and pilots trying…
It was good old-fashioned police work at its best.
A cloudburst the afternoon of June 22, 1938, south of Pilot Rock brought a raging torrent of water through the business section of town, demolishing most of the businesses on the south side of…
Residents of Heppner are well aware of the devastating floods that wreaked havoc on the town before the construction of Willow Creek Dam and technology designed as an early warning system on t…
The sight of a herd of buffalo grazing bucolically in a large meadow isn’t something you see every day in Eastern Oregon, but in the early 2000s it was actually a common sight along Interstate…
Harold Dobyns, a 70-year-old retired federal wildlife biologist, showed off his singular skill to East Oregonian reporter Virgil Rupp during a May 31, 1965 interview in Pendleton. Dobyns claim…
Of all the things to find in one’s yard while gardening, a gravestone might be the most eerie.
The click of the dice at a home on Winesap Road near Freewater was interrupted when masked men broke in on a craps game in April 1947 and got away scot-free with a reported $10,000 in cash and…
What started out as a fascination with one tooth of a gear and a snapshot in a magazine turned into a year-long project for two Weston-McEwen High School students intrigued by the idea of buil…
Lee Padberg was proud of his son Bryan, whose high school running career took off his freshman year at Heppner High School with state Class A titles in the 1,500 and 3,000 meter runs in 1986. …
A Heppner man, insanely jealous when the woman of his dreams chose a different companion, went on a shooting spree that left his heart’s desire and himself dead in May 1908.
Two men who disarmed a Seattle policeman and stole his car at gunpoint in April of 1950 were spotted in Pendleton and arrested by local police the next day.
A common sight in some rural communities is a huge letter and sometimes a set of large numbers gracing a hill overlooking town, decked out with white rocks, depicting the graduation year of th…
A duo of forest rangers wanting to film the awakening of a hibernating bear in April 1937 got more drama than they were expecting when the star of their amateur documentary awoke in a rather g…
A bank robber made a monumental effort to rob a Milton, Oregon, bank vault in April of 1929, but a vigilant policeman on the night beat prevented the heist and hauled the battered thief to jail.
First Amendment rights aside, sometimes speaking your mind has consequences. A Hermiston man paid the price in April of 1972 when his wife took to the opinion page in defense of personal freed…
Heppner ranch owners who discovered a cache of gold coins on their property in March 1968 quickly discovered the “strike” was almost more trouble than it was worth.
One minute they were working as usual. The next minute they were swimming in the frigid waters of the Columbia River near Umatilla. Three men affecting repairs on a river tanker on March 3, 19…
The city of Adams, located north of Pendleton in Umatilla County, will celebrate its 125th anniversary on Feb. 23, 2018. But the town was actually founded by mistake, according to a written ac…
Churchgoers can be very particular about their parish priests, as Pendleton Catholics discovered in March 1893.
Pep Week pranksters struck Pendleton High School in February 1981 with a puzzling parking problem.
In January 1905, a Pendleton man took on a roulette wheel with a vow that he would either beat the game or walk away penniless.
Three young children died in an early-morning blaze in January 1956 in the tiny town of Rieth, just outside Pendleton. The children’s father disappeared shortly after the fire, setting off a n…
A group of Umatilla County men on an elk hunting trip near Starkey in the Blue Mountains ended up in the courtroom in January 1935 when one of the party was shot following a photo fracas the p…
