What do you do with a well-used snowplow you don’t need any more?
The county had one, and what they did was auction it off.
The snowplow, along with a lot of other equipment that weren’t exactly household items, went on the block Saturday and every last piece of it sold.
The joint city-county auction was such a success, the county now wants to hold another next year to include school district, City of Cascade Locks, and other governmental bodies that might have equipment they don’t need.
When the books were cleared, the county was $10,315 richer. Most of the money went to the road fund, part to the general fund. The City of Hood River also took in several hundred dollars.
Not all the items sold were as unusual as the snowplow, which sold for $225. There were lamps, business machines, bicycles and a chain saw. There were several vehicles, including a Jeep and a pick-up truck that brought in more than they had cost the county 15 years ago (through a government surplus sale).
The star of the show was an aging crawler tractor. A logging company bought it for $6,250. It needed repair, but the company probably figured it was a better bargain than buying one in better condition for $10,000 or $11,000.
There was no shortage of bidders. County Finance Director Ray Miller said over 200 bidding numbers were given out. At most auctions, only a part of the total crowd takes the numbers.
No matter how unusual the items might have been, by the end of the day, they were sold. The price was whatever was bid, and take it away. So an old spotlight from a police car, long since traded in, brought a dollar, the “Cat” brought more than $6,000. These were the lowest and highest priced items.
Bicycles — there were several of them — brought from $45 for a 10-speed in excellent condition to $2 for a repairman’s special.
There were gas pumps, a school bus, compressors, refrigerators, a tractor, passenger vehicle, dump truck and pick-ups going across the auction block at the county shops. And go they did. The City of Hood River had some silver dollars that went for $7 each.
It left Miller enthusiastic with the response, so he’ll try to set up another bigger and better auction another time.
“I even wanted to bid,” he admitted, “but the price on what I wanted got too high.”
— Hood River News, October 27, 1977
1917 — 100 years ago
A new lumber mill has been established by the Fir Lumber Company, which is owned by H.M. Sidney. The machinery of the old Schiller mill has been secured and further equipment added. Mr. Sidney controls about six million feet of timber immediately tributary of the mill, most of it fir.
1927 — 90 years ago
Thanks to rigid isolation, there has been no new cases of infantile paralysis since the original outbreak was diagnosed. The ban on children’s assemblages has been removed and this weekend a number of Hallowe’en parties are being held. Throughout the state, there has been a steady falling off in the number of new cases, and it is believed that with the onset of colder weather, the disease will gradually disappear, at least until next summer. In the meantime, parents are warned that they owe it to their children to keep a close watch over them and they should seek medical aid if children become unwell.
1937 — 80 years ago
A short in an underground circuit which feeds the downtown area, just before noon last Saturday, tied up business for more than an hour, and introduced a number of unexpected complications. The short occurred at 11:50 a.m. and the feedback at the power plant made things hot for members of the crew, one of whom was knocked off his feet, but without injury. The PP&L Co.’s crew immediately extended a temporary circuit around the damaged cable and service was resumed about 1:15 p.m. Restaurants found it difficult to fill short orders, electric cash registers would not function, and at the packing plants, crews were able to salvage fruit by dipping it from the washing tanks.
1947 — 70 years ago
Three burglars, one of whom carried a sawed-off loaded shotgun, were apprehended here early Thursday morning by a trio of local law enforcement officers in the act of looting Ed’s Penny-wise grocery store on 12th Street. Not a shot was fired, although evidence indicates one of the bandits drew down on one of the officers, but the shell did not explode. Quick reporting by a housewife, who heard the crash of breaking glass at the store, and the fact there were three officers available to make the arrests was said by Sheriff Rupert L. Gillmouthe to have been responsible for the speedy and bloodless arrests.
1957 — 60 years ago
Hood River County finally got its share of the flu bugs that have infested almost every county in Oregon by this week. Both city and county school systems reported an average of 30 percent absenteeism during the past week, but indicated that the end is in sight. City Health Officer Dr. Herbert Lewis noted that most doctors in the city are getting “about a dozen calls a day” on the assortment of illnesses variously called a cold, the flu, or perhaps even the old-fashioned “la grippe.” So far, no one has specifically diagnosed a case of Asian flu in the city, although there are several reports of cases with the exact symptoms expected from the malady. Pine Grove missed 70 of its 170 pupils this week, while Mid Valley lost 80 out of 240.
1967 — 50 years ago
Women had their way, and gained at least a start in civic government affairs when Mayor R.L. Nielson appointed Mrs. Ella Moe to the planning commission here Monday. The appointment came two weeks after a delegation representing several women’s organizations had appeared before the council to request consideration of such an appointment.
1977 — 40 years ago
A citizens’ group opposing extensive commercial recreational development in the upper Hood River Valley got down to cases here Tuesday. The “Hood River Valley Residents Committee” defined its goals, collected funds to sustain its goals, and expanded a steering committee to spearhead its efforts. Just over 100 persons gathered for the second session called to further the goals. Their target in general is to prevent extensive development in present forest-zoned areas. Their particular goal is to reverse a County Board of Commissioners decision which would allow Mt. Hood Meadows, LLC, to develop a $25 million, 450-unit recreational development on 56 acres of land the corporation owns a few miles south of Parkdale between Highway 35 and Cooper Spur Road.
1987 — 30 years ago
Hood River’s city council voted 6-1 to work with the county to establish a three-way stop at the intersection of Rand Road and May Street on the west end of town. La Clinica, a health facility in the area, and local residents asked for the intersection change to slow traffic in the area. The city will send a letter to the county indicating its desire for the change.
1997 — 20 years ago
Reversing a two-year trend of local downsizing, Sprint has chosen Hood River as a regional site for customer service and repair in a dramatic move that will add jobs to the Hood River economy. Lots of them. The company will begin job recruiting efforts within a few weeks and the largely vacant main floor of the Waucoma Building is being wired with telecommunications equipment that could accommodate more than 100 additional employees. Key to the plan is the designation of Hood River as one of the new nationally developed call center sites that will charge local offices with primary responsibility for customer care and repair for a three-state area.
2007 — 10 years ago
Two sources of funding have lined up for Cascade Locks’ new Emergency Services Center. The state released the $500,000 in funds from a Community Development Block Grant after the city passed its environmental site review. And the Oregon Investment Board approved a $143,000 loan application that the city needed to fill the gap between its dedicated funding and the cost of the project. Efforts to build a new fire hall have been going on for more than 20 years. The council first ordered a design study in 1985. In the past two years, efforts to build a new facility gained momentum when $700,000 in grant funding was secured by the city, including the half-million from the state.
— Compiled by Trisha Walker, News staff writer
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