About the City of Bend

For thousands of years, predating western colonialism, the Wana Łama, Wasq’u and Norther Paiute people resided on what is known as modern day Bend. The three tribes moved through this space and relied on the game, roots, berries, and salmon. Their presence was unencumbered until the early and mid-19th century. In 1855, Joel Palmer, superintendent for the Oregon Territory, received his orders to clear the Indians from their lands. He did so by negotiating a series of Indian treaties including the one establishing the Warm Springs Reservation. Under the treaty, the Warm Springs and Wasco tribes relinquished approximately ten million acres of land, but reserved the Warm Springs Reservation for their exclusive use. The tribes also kept their rights to harvest fish, game and other foods off the reservation in their usual and accustomed places.[1] By 1877 a land claim was filed for the “Farewell Bend” ranch, located at the dramatic 90 degree bend in the Deschutes River just south of what is now downtown. A post office for the Farewell Bend settlement was applied for in 1886 and granted that year under the name of Bend.

In its earliest days, Bend was a small trade center for the agricultural and ranching operations to the east and north.  Shortly after the turn of the century, East Coast developers formed the first irrigation companies in the area, and construction was begun on several large canals and dams needed to take water out of the Deschutes River to irrigate the high, dry desert.  The main canals are still in operation today, and snake through Bend as they carry water to agricultural lands as far away as Madras, 40 miles to the north.

The City of Bend was incorporated in 1905, with a population of about 500 persons.  In the next decade, two events changed the direction of Bend for the next half century.  In 1911 the Oregon Trunk Line Railroad coming south from the Columbia River was completed to Bend.  The railroad created a new lifeline to move people and products in and out of Central Oregon.  Four years later, two large Minnesota lumber companies, the Shevlin- Hixon company and the Brooks- Scanlon company, announced plans to build large sawmills on each side of the Farewell Bend stretch of river.

The railroad and lumber mills created an explosion in Bend’s population and increased the number of residents to more than 5,000 persons by 1920.  These same forces led to a tremendous growth in commerce and housing that is still evident today in much of downtown and older residential areas west and south of downtown.  As a result, many of the historic buildings and structures listed in the city’s inventory of historical buildings and places are direct products of the boom period of the first part of the 20th century.[2]