Oregon’s $2.6 million party was a swan song

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story started in one of the participating news publications that run the weekly Offbeat Oregon History newspaper column. If you have found your way here in some other way, the article might not make much sense, as the first 600 or so words will be missing!

Then the next year’s property-tax bill comes for their house, and it’s a big increase. It breaks their carefully balanced family budget into tiny pieces. The local school district, faced with a sharp shortfall in stumpage fees from canceled logging operations on its school lands, is trying to keep the doors open with a hefty property-tax increase.

A furious Fred, exhausted and middle-aged and facing a real threat of foreclosure on his family home, is absolutely ready to vote “yes” on Ballot Measure 5, the controversial ballot initiative that would cap property taxes and require the state government to shift money around to cover shortfalls in school districts like theirs.

When Election Day comes, he’s very motivated to go and vote for it.

But on his way to the ballot box, Fred stops in at a pawnshop. He’s got two hunting rifles — his dad’s old .25-35, and a sleek Winchester Model 70 in .270 that he bought new in 1963 with his first big paycheck at the mill. Right now he needs the cash more than the memories, so he’s looking to sell the .270 to make his next mortgage payment.

While the broker is looking over the rifle, Fred casts an eye over the coin counter. There, on the top shelf, priced to sell at a whopping ten cents, is something that takes him back.

IT’S A LARGE coin, dull bronze in color. Around the outer rim he sees the words, “Oregon Centennial 1859-1959.”

He remembers when he had a pocket full of those coins. They were worth 50 cents in trade around his home town. They were a big part of the Oregon Centennial Celebration, which Fred remembers well; he was 13 years old at the time.

Fred remembers the Oregon Centennial as the high-water mark of Oregon’s postwar modernist culture. Fred and all his neighbors geared up for it a year or two ahead of time. The Centennial coins were a big part of that.

Preparations for it had started four years earlier, Fred happens to know, because his fourth-grade civics teacher, Mr. D’Addio, was very excited about it. The Oregon State Legislature had allocated $2.6 million for the party.

“You can throw one humdinger of a wingding with 2.6 big ones,” said Mr. D’Addio.

The next year Mr. D’Addio got appointed to the Molalla area Centennial Committee. The committee started raising funds and awareness right away, and one of the best tools they had for that was a minting of bronze coins like the one Fred is now looking at.

Fred remembers cashing in all his allowance money for Centennial Tokens, which he spent at businesses around town. They were about the size of a half-dollar, and made of bronze. People called them “so-called dollars.” He wishes he’d hung onto one, but of course, being 11 or 12 at the time, he spent them as fast as he got them. They had to be spent before Feb. 14, 1959 — the actual date, 100 years and zero days after Oregon officially became a state.

As the day drew near, everyone in town got more and more excited about it. Fred’s eighth-grade class created big posters on butcher paper festooned with covered wagons and proud pioneers and happy-looking Indians, which were hung in the halls of Molalla Elementary School.

Then came the big day. President Dwight Eisenhower made a proclamation. Vice-President Richard Nixon appeared with Oregon Governor Mark Hatfield at the state Capitol, which was dusted with a surprise late-season snow, and had a 19-gun salute fired in his honor with 105-mm Howitzers. The ceremonies were opened by the Oregon Symphony. Members of the National Guard stood at attention. Fred watched it all on his family’s new color TV.

At a Grand Centennial Ball in Salem, the movers and shakers of the state gathered for a tony party replete with a cake shaped like the state Capitol building, with pictures of a bridge, power lines and log truck in the frosting. Fred didn’t get invited to that — it was a bit above his pay grade — but again, he watched it on TV.

That summer, there was a huge event called the Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair, held on the Columbia River just north of Portland. Fred and his family went several times; there was a lot to see and do there. A huge Exposition Building showcased hundreds of companies and state agencies: Alpenrose Dairy, Hyster (the forklift company), all the local radio and TV stations, Tektronix, Franz Bread ... the Atomic Energy Commission was there, talking about how nuclear power could take Oregon and the nation into a smog-free future. A huge statue of Paul Bunyan stood outside. There was a miniature train taking folks around to see all the exhibits — a Frontier Village, a Bavarian Beer Garden, a train of covered wagons, an Indian Village with totem poles and tepees, and actors all around in character.

The Exposition kicked off with Raymond Burr, a.k.a. Perry Mason, as master of ceremonies. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were there; Harry Belafonte, Lawrence Welk, and Merle Travis were also on the program. Fred was there, on opening day. It was truly spectacular.

Looking back on it now, it gets Fred thinking about what he had, and what he lost, between 1959 and 1989 — thirty years, a blink of an eye really. The Oregon he grew up in was full of prosperity, as anybody willing to roll up their sleeves and go to work could bring home a decent income. He knew it hadn’t been like that for everyone, but for most, it was a Pacific wonderland for real, with gorgeous unspoiled scenery and a sense of community and equality, and log trucks everywhere creaking under loads of old-growth trees.

He knows now that it had been doomed to end sooner or later. In his 30-year career he’s noticed how much smaller the sticks have been getting at the mill, and in the log-truck loads he passes on the road.

He also knows Oregon can’t go back. There were so many things Oregonians were blissfully ignorant of in 1959, besides the fact that eventually the trees would run out: pollution in the rivers, the shameful treatment of Indians by those golden pioneers he so admired, nuclear waste, urban sprawl, traffic congestion — and, of course, expanding bureaucracies in Salem telling everyone what to do.

Thirty years earlier there was a starry-eyed innocence to the Beaver State. And innocence, once lost, is gone forever. Oregon can’t go back, Fred knows; the best he can do now is vote to stop the state and local governments from jacking up his taxes to compensate for their lost timber revenue. He guesses he might as well go ahead and do that. It’s better than nothing, he figures. (Arguably, he’s wrong — but the impacts of Measure 5 are a subject for another day.)

But still, Fred sure wishes the good times could have lasted just a few more years, long enough to get him to retirement age.

“I CAN’T GIVE you what it’s worth, a mint pre-’64 Winchester like this,” says a voice behind him, startling him.

He looks up. The pawnbroker is holding his rifle.

“Two fifty is the best I can do,” the broker says.

Fred sighs sadly. He’s going to miss that rifle; he’s used it to get venison for his family every season for the past twenty years. But, the mortgage has to be paid.

He points to the Centennial Token. “Throw that in, and you got yourself a deal.”

(Sources: “Centennial Exposition of 1959,” an article by David Kludas published March 23, 2022, on The Oregon Encyclopedia; Salem Public Library archives)

Finn J.D. John teaches at Oregon State University and writes about odd tidbits of Oregon history. His most recent book, Bad Ideas and Horrible People of Old Oregon, published by Ouragan House early this year. To contact him or suggest a topic: finn@offbeatoregon.com or 541-357-2222.