The Wallowa County Who-Who
The Portland Review, 2000
By Charles Deemer
No one knows when the first spotted owls alighted in Wallowa County. Normally the endangered species preferred the milder climate of old growth forests in Oregon’s coastal range to rugged mountains more fit for a goat, where winter could last three-fourths of the year. Their arrival was not expected, and by the time the owls were discovered in Joseph, they were already there in great and public numbers.
Mayor Divorak saw them first. He had come to City Hall shortly after five a.m. on Monday to catch up on paperwork before the morning’s emergency session of the City Council. An emergency meeting was no small matter; usually the Council hardly had reason to meet at all. But the Nez Perce had hired a fancy lawyer from Portland to challenge the city’s plans, initiated by the mayor himself, to develop the north end of Wallowa Lake into a resort and marina. Lord knows something had to be done to revitalize the Eastern Oregon economy. The trouble was, the land in question was adjacent to the grave of old Chief Joseph, on land the Nez Perce regarded as sacred. If the Council went through with its plans, the tribe’s lawyer threatened, the case would be taken all the way to the Supreme Court. This was not the way Mayor Divorak wanted to put Joseph on the map.
Who owns the land?, was the question on the mayor’s mind that morning.
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read the rest at: http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/whowho.htm
