50 YEARS AGO

from the Democrat-Herald

May 13, 1971

A Baker businessman whose daily business depends on prompt, efficient mail delivery said today the post office will suffer a tremendous loss of business after the increased postal rates take effect Sunday.

Leo Adler says publishers and reshippers are dissatisfied at the way the post office has increased rates without conducting hearings where they would be able to testify in their behalf.

25 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

May 13, 1996

Baker tuned up for the District 7-3A track meet by placing first and second at the Baker Invitational Friday at Baker High School.

Baker won the girls’ meet and placed second in the boys’ meet. The other teams at the invitational were La Grande, Ontario and Pendleton.

The Bulldogs earned six first place finishes in the girls’ meet.

Angie Henes was a double winner in the two hurdle events. Sarah Cotton was also a double winner, in the shot and discus.

10 YEARS AGO

from the Baker City Herald

May 13, 2011

Ever wish, when you look at a photograph of Baker City’s Main Street in the 1930s, that you could step into that scene and truly understand what life was like?

Or you could just ask Chet Smith.

He can tell you the names of the businesses, who ran them and what they sold.

He’ll even rattle off the addresses.

He was there, and in his 100 years he’s witnessed a lot in Baker City.

Smith was born May 10, 1911, in a house on 10th Street.

ONE YEAR AGO

from the Baker City Herald

May 14, 2020

Annie Franks had a tree problem.

Actually she had 30,000 tree problems.

The trouble wasn’t the trees themselves.

The 30,000 tamarack (western larch) seedlings arrived at the BLM’s Baker Field Office as scheduled on April 8, packed in a refrigerated truck to protect their delicate bare roots.

Franks’ dilemma was that she didn’t have anybody to plant the trees on about 600 acres burned during the Cornet-Windy Ridge fire south of Baker City in August 2015.

The coronavirus pandemic was at the root of the situation.

Just a few hours after the truck delivered the tamarack seedlings, Franks, a forestry technician, learned that the BLM, which had planned to award a contract to a tree-planting contractor later that day, would not be doing so.

The BLM couldn’t guarantee housing, meals and other accommodations for the crew of 10 to 15 planters, said Larisa Bogardus, public affairs officer for the BLM’s Vale District.

In addition, Baker County officials had asked agencies to avoid bringing in large groups of contractors from outside the county during the pandemic, Bogardus said.

Bill Harvey, chairman of the Baker County Board of Commissioners, met with Don Gonzalez, Vale District manager, to discuss the tree-planting contract.

Harvey said Wednesday that the BLM was “very accommodating” in granting the county’s request to avoid bringing in contractors.

Because the tamarack seedlings had been uprooted, they couldn’t be returned to the U.S. Forest Service’s J Herbert Stone Nursery at Central Point, near Medford, where they were grown from seed, Franks said.

If BLM officials couldn’t figure out how to plant the trees, they would go to waste.