The Warhaven City Council of 1946 was presented an opportunity by the mayor at the time, Ohio DuMont, who also administered the DuMont Foundation. Altruism abounds in our community, this writing being one brief report on a gift that kept on giving.
DuMont had been reading minutes of the council, going back to the governing body’s inception in 1870. One of the events that catches his eye is the council’s retreat of 1916, under the leadership of then mayor Philander Jones, held at the newly created Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a highly productive week away from town with results that aided the city though the Roaring ‘20s and into the Great Depression. He mulls this over and consults foundation budget documents, as the foundation had funded the retreat.
At the March meeting he proposed a similar retreat, suggesting the return to Estes Park and be housed at the Stanley Hotel’s Lodge. (The motion, which passed unanimously, created a tradition, for the 2008 retreat also convened at the national park.) The motion, seconded by Mary Means read, “The Warhaven City Council shall engage in a retreat at Rocky Mountain National Park the third week of July 1946, for which all expenses shall be paid by the DuMont Foundation, leaving no fiscal responsibility to the city. Topics and agendas to be set by the mayor.” At the April meeting DuMont laid out councilor responsibilities for research and visionary discussion points. Plans of action would be crafted in the retreat sessions and informally over meals and on walks in the mountains.
DuMont selected for himself fighting inflation, then quite high; he would also address fostering philanthropy. Uptown councilor Job Lyon was assigned health with a focus on polio, measles, mumps and chicken pox prevention. Mary Means of the West Hills was tasked with demobilization and relocation strategies including recruitment of specific work force skill needs, nursing topping that list. Councilor Lachlan McVie of the Plateau was a machinist by trade and was assigned attracting small scale industrial development.
Hailing from the Craggies, Hank Chapman, president of the Lyon Chapman Bat and Casket Company, became responsible for addressing and improving equity for all and also expanding entertainment options, as he was a big fan of the movies and of radio. If one listens, one can almost hear the mental cogs rolling and the imaginations stretching as these five small-town elected officials tackle the changes the end of World War II brought us.
In May, Ohio DuMont flies to Washington, D.C., where he engages in talks with the Civilian Production Board and the Office of Price Administration as well as with congressional leaders of both houses of both parties. The national railroad strike had crippled transportation and the economy that spring. Unions felt they had contributed enough to the war effort with wage freezes and wanted adjustments. Upon his return to Warhaven, DuMont conferred with all shop stewards in town and sought cooperation in crafting future contracts, in which he was largely successful.
Regarding philanthropy, DuMont calculated where he could spread the wealth in town to ease the anxieties of inflationary uncertainties. He worked with the New Hope County P.U.D. and the Warhaven City Clerk to subsidize electrical, water, and sewage bills for the underemployed. Job Lyon, vice president at LCBCC, developed a news media blitz regarding children’s health. Childhood diseases could be prevented, and their effects minimized with simple practices like the washing of hands, clothes, and dishes.
Job’s focus of disease prevention naturally led him to scrutinize the schools and how habits of hygiene might strengthen, how informing children might get good advice talked about at the dinner table. For the coming school year he hoped to schedule talks he would give to the teaching staffs of all three schools. One of Mary’s most effective contributions was her recruitment of nurses from the women’s military auxiliary units bringing Warhaven professionals from all corners of the country representing service in all combat theaters. Ohio at the DuMont Foundation agreed to fund nurses’ positions in the three schools as well as nursing administrators at both the Warhaven Care Center and the Warhaven Hospital. These women were all exceptionally tough and yet warmly diplomatic when it came to convincing men of common sense.
Lachlan McVie tackled small scale industrial development in Warhaven. He looked to the changing consumer desires. He hoped to attract three employers each with a work force of ten to twenty.
He anticipated the rise of television and lured manufactures to establish a trade school for TV repairmen. He prophesied safety concerns for automobiles as we traveled faster and faster and worked with carmakers to establish an independent laboratory designed to improve dashboard features. His third stroke was to approach Kodak to build a regional film processing facility, which they readily agreed to. These industries thrived, that is, until our throw away culture killed TV repair and the digital age strangled film and the carmakers consolidated safety innovations back east. All three of these businesses were housed up at the airport.
Hank Chapman tackled improving entertainment for us. He found a fellow from Denver to run the Big Dream Theater which Hank had constructed Downtown. In early 1947, at the grand opening, Tex Ritter was brought in to add some western glitz and to sing a few songs at the showing of Flaming Bullets. Hank’s energy also founded our radio station, KRRW, or K-Rushing River’s Warhaven on both the AM and FM dials. Hank recruited someone from WLS in Chicago to operate this medium. This business was an NBC affiliate and went on air with the Pepsodent Show starring such luminaries as Bob Hope, Desi Arnez, and Jerry Colonna. Locally produced shows on education, sports, and city government were mainstays. One of the first world music shows in the West, featuring recordings from such far-flung places as Brazil, India, Jamaica, and Greece was soon airing across the country. Having also been tasked with addressing equity, Hank performed two operations, one as a kind of one-man-show better-business-bureau, listening to complaints and arm twisting to correct workplace injustices. He also convinced school guidance counselors to better promote the sciences to girls. He incentivized this with $20,000 to start a college scholarship for female students wishing to pursue a career in biology, chemistry, or physics.
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The City Council is a work of fiction by Jim Tindall, appearing every other week in Columbia Gorge News.
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