Bits of interesting history and trivia about Bend…

• In August of 1934 Eleanor Roosevelt passed through Bend, staying at the Pilot Butte Inn and dining on planked trout.
• Other notable people who stayed at the Pilot Butte Inn (opened in 1917, demolished in 1973) include Herbert Hoover, Ty Cobb, and Humphrey Bogart.
• From the fall of 1964 through the winter of 1965, a ski run and jump was built and used on the northwestern slope of Pilot Butte. Snow was hauled in from Tumalo Falls to be spread over the slope. The ski jump was removed in 1967.
• The early publisher and owner of the Bulletin was George P. Putnam, of the Putnam publishing empire. He ran the paper from 1910-1919 and later married Amelia Earhart.
• In 1933 the city began holding a water pageant on Mirror Pond for the Fourth of July. Thousands of people would come to watch the pageant, which featured elaborate illuminated floats that would pass through an arch and drift down the river. The last water pageant was held in 1965.
• The Pine Tavern restaurant opened in 1935.
• Two Native American names for the area Bend is located: Wychick, and Widgi Creek. Other names that were considered for the city (aside from the well-known Farewell Bend): Deschutes, Pilot Butte, Staats, Lenark, and Oreopolis.