1940 -1949

  … Rocky Point, Upper Klamath Lake, Fort Klamath, Crater Lake, Klamath Development Company
•  … Transportation, Logging. Railroads, Power, Communications, Mining
•  … Reclamation, Farming, Merrill, Malin, Tulelake
  … Klamath Falls, Jacksonville, Medford, Ashland
  … Indians, Klamath & Yainax Agency, Chiloquin, Spring Creek, Sprague

    1940
    • The USA population is 132,164,569, Oregon’s  is 1,089.684, Klamath County’s is 40,497 and Klamath Falls’ population is 16,497.
    • January, Oregon Airways makes its first passenger flight out of Klamath Falls to Portland.
    • January, Lava Beds camp to get largest replacement crew; 350 men were returned to their homes in east and south; will be replace in mid-January.
      March, new electric ski lift at Crater Lake.
    • March, Carmen brings old Spain to l ife on Pelican stage; San Carlo troupe brings its 125-person crew.
    • March,  ancient Indian pipes dug up in Poe Valley field.
    • April 30, Ceremony will open new road over Willamette Pass.
    • May, Catherine E. Moore Spencer, heroine of Civil War, buried in Linkville Cemetery.
     May 27, Arvid Hakanson buys the original Frank Wood homestead in Rocky Point from COPCO.
    •   2,900 acres drained at Wood River Ranch (1940-57).
     The film Sundowner, starring Gene Tierney, Bruce Cabot, George Sanders, Harry Carey and Dorothy Dandridge, is filmed at Crater Lake, although the story is set in Africa. Released in 1941.
     Mrs. Gus Johnson holds school for a few students at Harriman Lodge.
     Agers built a large store in 1940 with ice cream fountain, cafe
counter, groceries, general merchandise and a community phone on Modoc and Main in Tulelake.
    • Klamath Falls has 2 railroad stations, 4 bus stations, 1 city bus, 1 taxi, 4 hotels, 1 radio station. 4 movie theaters, 2 swimming pools, 1 golf course and 1 riding stable. It is the largest wooden box manufacturing district in the United States.
     June, scientists to dig in Lower Klamath Lake Archaeological excavation.
    • August, Wild plums preserved by Mrs. Twyla Ferguson and Mrs. E.A. Geary aid Britain.
    • September,   handsome dance palace opens at Malin.
    • October, thousands register for military conscription at armory
    • November, New ice rink opened on lake shore at Moore Park (following drowning deaths last year of Gerald Colvin, Earl Ralph Ray
    • December,   Ground broken for rescue mission
     December, Train conductor killed in collision of engine, caboose
    • Tim Brown, an Indian, died after successfully amassing a good sized fortune.
    • Harold Crane sold his mill at Bly, Oregon and moved to Northern California where he built a mill and acquired vast stands of timber. Crane was a Deputy under John Bedford in the Forestry Department. He wed Cora Bressette and was an incorprator of Bray Mill.
    • Upper Klamath Basin contains over 300,000 acres of irrigable land. 5,000 carloads of potatoes shipped out of the Basin annually. Klamath Irrigation Project contains nearly 200,000 acres under irrigation.
    • 28 sawmills employing 3,000 men cut 350,000,000 feet of lumber annually.
    • Klamath Falls has a series of hot mineral springs, one of which discharges 800,000 gallons daily.
    • Claudia Spink and her husband William Lorenz moved to Chiloquin and lived there 28 years. She wrote The Time of My Life, the story of the Klamath Agency and the Reservation for the Klamath Museum in 1969, Klamath County research paper #4.

    1941
    • Klamath Development Company dissolves.
    • March, Duke Ellington performs at Klamath Armory.
      4/9 – Fred Fleet and Gus Johnson buy 561.76 acres from Fleishhacker for $7,350 in a bankruptcy sale. Johnson buys Harriman Lodge and Fleet buys Point Comfort and subdivides property across Rocky Point road.
    • 4/24 – Tower Theater opens in Klamath Falls.
    • Bear weighing 400 pounds is killed at the Klamath Agency.
     Chiloquin has 26 daily trains; shipments include 90 cars of forest products, 100 cars of sheep and 2,500 cattle cars.
    • Tulelake drills water well to 2,000 feet without much success.
    • May, Klamath Project construction begins on the Tule Lake diversion with the P and P-1 Canals. Workers begin the Sheepy Ridge Tunnel, a 6,600-foot east-west culvert that drains Tule Lake into Lower Klamath Lake and on to the Klamath River. Pumping plant D is built to lift water from Tule Lake into a tunnel that will move water west
    • August,   fire destroys lumber at Ewauna Box factory.
    • August, record rainfall (1.92 inches) in downtown Klamath Falls.
    • October, Mechanical potato harvesters make appearance in Basin.
    • August 18, In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure “good behavior” on the part of Japan.
    • Tulelake has auctions for city property.
    • December 7 – The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor leads to national unification and puts to an end the “State of Jefferson” movement that began in the 1850’s to unify Southern Oregon and Northern California as a separate territory.
    • A 1941 account reported Malin had eight gas stations, two general merchandise stores,
one variety store, one drug store, one bakery, two beer gardens, one hotel, one shoe
shop, two garages, a lumberyard, a cheese factory, and a blacksmith shop, a
considerable number of businesses considering Malin’s population of 535.

    1942
    •  February 19, President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limited interest at the time, this order set the stage for the entire forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
     Researchers note Aphanizomenal Flos-Aquate, an algae, appears to be taking over lake.
    • March 2, Gen. John L. DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 which creates Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 includes the western portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and part of Arizona while Military Area No. 2 includes the rest of these states. The proclamation also hints that people might be excluded from Military Area No. 1.
    • March, six Japanese escorted from near Merrill by sheriff.
    • March 18, the president signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority (WRA) with Milton Eisenhower as director. It is allocated $5.5 million.
      March 30, old log lodge, built by Kendall, burns at Harriman Lodge (sparks from chimney ignite roof).
    • April, smoke stacks collapse at Big Lakes mill.
     Klamath Falls Municipal Airport becomes a Naval Air Station.
    • April, Tule Lake Internment Center begins construction when equipment and supplies
 arrived on site on Klamath Reclamation Project land. Tule Lake was designed to hold 10,000 internees within a square mile.
    • May 27, The first contingent of internees arrives at the Tule Lake Internment camp. This group included 447 volunteers who came from Puyallup and Portland temporary detention centers.
     May – Tule Lake is one of the ten American relocation camps for 110,000 of Japanese ancestry. It closes March 1946.
    • May 29, 
largely organized by Quaker leader Clarence E. Pickett, the National Japanese-American Student Relocation Council is formed in Philadelphia with University of Washington Dean Robert W. O’Brien as director. By war’s end, 4,300 Nisei would be in college.
    • June, Frank Jenkins consolidates the evening “Herald” and the morning “News” into the “Herald and News”.
    • June, 1500 Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens, from internees began arriving from
 Northern California, Washington and Oregon, 
were living along with a large contingent of government guards, officials and 
support staff.
    • June, the movie Little Tokyo, U.S.A. is released by Twentieth Century Fox. In it, the Japanese American community is portrayed as a “vast army of volunteer spies” and “blind worshippers of their Emperor, ” as described in the film’s voice-over prologue.
    • August 15, farm labor strike at Tule Lake Internment Camp.
    • October 20, 
President Roosevelt calls the “relocation centers” “concentration camps” at a press conference. The WRA had consistently denied that the term “concentration camps” accurately described the camps.
      Crater Lake post office closed for the duration of the war.

    1943
    • March, Moore Park zoo’s meateaters suffer from shortage of meat.
    • July, Tule Lake Internment Camp became Tule Lake Segregation Center. Internees 
from other relocation centers who refused to sign a loyalty oath or caused
 disturbances were sent to Tule Lake.
    • September 13, the realignment of Tule Lake as a camp for “dissenters” begins. After the loyalty questionnaire episode, “loyal” internees begin to depart to other camps. Five days later, “disloyal” internees from other camps begin to arrive at Tule Lake.
     10/1 “ Rocky Point” post office and store burns down at Harriman Lodge.
    • Irrigated acreage in Upper Klamath Basin jumps 57% to 165,897 acres.
    • November 1, a crowd estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 Tule Lake inmates gathered near the administration area to show interest and support for camp leaders meeting with WRA administrators. The mass gathering of Japanese Americans alarmed the Caucasian staff and led to construction of a barbed wire fence to separate the colony from the WRA administrative personnel.  The Army was poised to take over the camp in case of trouble, with tanks lined up in a display of potential force.
    • November 4, the Tule Lake uprising caps a month of strife. Tension had been high since the administration had fired 43 coal workers involved in a labor dispute on October 7.
    Disputes over truckloads of food taken from the warehouse led to the Army takeover of the camp. Martial law was imposed and was continued until January 15, 1944.

    1944
    • Klamath County Historical Society established.
     February, two airmen (Ensigns Wallace Cerkvenik and Louis Gahre) killed in first fatal incident at Klamath Falls naval air base.
     A special train brings another 271 internees of Japanese descent to the Tule lake Relocation Center, bringing the internee population to 18,424.
    • May 24, Shoichi James Okamoto is shot to death at Tule Lake by a guard after stopping a construction truck at the main gate for permission to pass. Private Bernard Goe, the guard, would be acquitted after being fined a dollar for “unauthorized use of government property” –a bullet.
    • Tulelake Growers Association request for Italian and german prisoners of war to help in the farm fields is granted as is a request for Mexican nationals to be brought in.
    • October, Harry S. Truman visits Klamath Falls.
     November, Klamath Naval Air station planes crash near Clear Lake. Plane crash victims include Ralph Walter Skidmore Jr., Richard Lee Hartwick, Edward Joseph Grohs, Benjamin L. Kauffman.
     December, two Navy airmen, Robert J. Pinz and David O. Herget, killed in plane crash east of Clear Lake.

    1945
    • January 2, 
Restrictions preventing resettlement on the West Coast are removed, although many exceptions continue to exist. A few carefully screened Japanese Americans had returned to the coast in late 1944.
    • May 5 – Japanese balloon bomb kills six people and an unborn child near Bly. These are the only war related deaths in the United States.
    • May 7, the surrender of Germany ends the war in Europe.
    • U.S. Marine Corps constructs barracks in Klamath Falls to house veterans recovering from Pacific Theater tropical diseases.
    (1945-1946).
    • The Sportsman Hotel opened in 1945 with a lunch counter, restaurant, bar
and casino featuring slot machines,poker, roulette and black jack.
    • Peak year of Southern Pacific war freight and passenger service. The last new steam engine goes into service.
    • Crystal School burns down while occupied by loggers.
     United Airlines begins service at the Klamath Falls Airport.
    • Summer, the film Canyon Passage is filmed at Crater Lake, showing Indians riding out of the calders to attack a wagon train on Rim Drive. The film stars Ward Bond, Brian Donlevy, dana Andrews, Susan Hayward, Lloyd Bridges and Andy Devine. Canyon Passage is released in 1946.
    • August 14, the war in the Pacific ends.
    • Oct 15- Dec 15,  all WRA Internment camps are closed except for Tule Lake Center

    1946
     Alfred Collier purchases 200 acres on Spring Creek from William and Claudia Lorenz for the State of Oregon. This will become the center of Collier State Park.
    •  Last log drive on Wood River. (1946 -47).
     410 acres drained at Ball Bay West.
    • March 20, 
Tule Lake closes, culminating “an incrediblle mass evacuation in reverse.” In the month prior to the closing, some 5,000 internees had to be moved, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, or mentally ill and with no place to go.
     April, Klamath Falls City agrees to sign permit allowing civilian use of airport.
     May, lands for Japanese-American Internment – Segregation Center and German prisoner-of-war camps are returned to the Project. A substantial infrastructure was 
left in place: five deep wells, red cinder roads, many surplus buildings, water,
sewer, electricity, Southern Pacific Railroad lines and Highway 139.
    • June 30, War Relocation Authority program officially terminates.
    • December 18, Tulelake experienced growth and when 86 World War II veterans drew their names
out of a pickle jar and won homesteads. There were also 
86 alternates selected.
     Lloyd and Florence Timmons lease Rocky Point Resort (1946-73).
    •  Modoc Lumber Co., owned by the Shaw family, begins operation on Lake Ewauna.
     September, sawdust pile at Consumers Heating Co. will heat downtown.
     October, plane crash near Tulelake kills Claude Metz.
    • October, Northwest Chemurgy potato starch plant being readied.
    • November, Interior Secretary J.A. Krug visits Tulelake.
     December 16, Klamath Art Association is incorporated. Vern Swanson is the first president.

    1947
     Barges loaded with red cinders from Coon Point towed across lake for ballast on Southern Pacific railroad lines.
    • March, engineers study proposed Boundary Dam on Lost River.
     Oregon Vocational School opens. Name changes to Oregon Technical Institute in 1948.
    • August, potential of irrigation on reservation considered.
    • Klamath tribes buy a small plane, which they name Kla-Mo-Ya, to use for fire lookout duty.
    • Blocklinger Lumber and Box Company burns down. Mill site is sold and rebuilt.
     The Newell Homestead Club was formed. It focused on schools,
improved roads, telephone and electric service, mail routes and protect farmers.
    • A bill calling for the liquidation of the Klamath Reservation is drafted on behalf of a statewide county organization.
    • An earthquake is recorded 11 kilometers from Crater Lake.
     October 1 “Rocky Point” post office changes to “Harriman”.
    • October, Coppock Bay, in Tule Lake Basin, homestead opened.
    •  October 28 State President Marshall Cornett, of Klamath Falls, dies in hunting plane crash along with Governor Earl Snell, Secretary of State Robert Farrell Jr., and the pilot. They favored Interstate 5 coming through Klamath Falls.

    1948
     Rogers buys Point Comfort.
    • The Rim Lodge at Crater Lake is sold to Mr. and Mrs. Michael E. Lee, and son Kenneth, of Oakland, California, by R.W. Price, who had operated the lodge for 27 years. The sale was approved by the National Park Service.
    • Klamath Indian Superintendent Raymond Bitney writes to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ” the General Council of the Klamath Tribes has consistently opposed any attempts to liquidate the Klamath reservation.”
    • Centerpiece of Malin Community Park, the Olympic size 94’ x 56’ swimming pool was built
.
    • April, COPCO sells 8,000-acre ranch to Tulana Farms.
     April, North entrance to Klamath Falls under construction, including well for geothermal bridge.
     April, Link River runs dry.
    • April, Klamath Falls stockbroker Louis K. Ankeney is convicted of larceny.
    • May, Gems to play first professional baseball game in Klamath Falls.
    • May, New York Gov., and presidential, candidate Tom Dewey, visits Klamath Falls.
    • June, Upper Klamath Lake surface measured at 4,142.8 feet, highest level since 1943.
      June, President Truman makes train stop in Klamath Falls.
      June, new Stateline Highway open.
    •  July 2, President Truman signs the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act, a measure to compensate Japanese Americans for certain economic losses attributable to their forced evacuation. Although some $28 million was to be paid out through provision of the act, it would be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in which it operated.
      Two die in the first fatal car accident on the new stretch of Highway 97 near Chiloquin.
    • August, Plane crash at Lake of the Woods kills four politicians – John Snellstrom, Earle Johnson, William Fluhrer, H.H. Evans.
    • September, two Tulelake farmers put sugarbeets on their land for the first time. The natural potash in the soil of southern Oregon gives sugarbeets the highest sugar content of any grown in the world.
    • Tulelake holds auction for city property.
    • Gambling 
as a legal enterprise was ended in 1948 by order of the California and Siskiyou County.

    1949
    • January, A. Kalina retires as mayor of Malin, the town which he claimed to have named.
    • January, President Truman delivers budget that cuts proposed veterans hospital for Klamath Falls.
     Walter and Irene Klinger buy Point Comfort. Subdivide property on Pelican Bay.
    • May 23, DDT spraying begins along the shores of Upper Klamath lake to control mosquitos.
      June, eight flying disks, traveling at a speed of 1,000 mph and at an altitude of 25,000 to 30,000 feet, are seen by five members of the Civil Aeronautics Authority at Klamath Falls Airport.
    • June, Klamath Falls City Council takes first steps to permit negroes to be buried in the Klamath memorial park Cemetery.
    • July, Mayor of Klamath Falls turns the first shovelful of earth for the new Klamath Yacht Club building on Front Street, facing Upper Klamath Lake.
     Newell has utilities, water, sewer, electric service in-place and had access
 to the Central Pacific Railroad and a Klamath-Alturas bus stop.
    • November, William Ganong, Charles Stark travel to Salem for talks on proposed diversion of Klamath Basin water to Nevada and California.
    • November, The Merrill brick elementary school, built in 
1911, burned down.
     1949 was the driest Klamath County year on record since 1905.

  … Rocky Point, Upper Klamath Lake, Fort Klamath, Crater Lake, Klamath Development Company
•  … Transportation, Logging. Railroads, Power, Communications, Mining
•  … Reclamation, Farming, Merrill, Malin, Tulelake
  … Klamath Falls, Jacksonville, Medford, Ashland
  … Indians, Klamath & Yainax Agency, Chiloquin, Spring Creek, Sprague

    upper klamath basin timelines icon

    Klamath Basin Timeline: Before 1500 … Islands, Mountains, and People

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1500 – 1839 … England, Spain, Russia

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1840 – 1859 … Trappers, Gold and Trails

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1860 – 1869 … Applegates and Captain Jack

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1870 – 1879 … Strongholds and Swamplands

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1880 – 1889 … Klamath County and Newspapers

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1890 – 1899 … Merrill, Flour and Potatoes.

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1900 – 1909 … Steamboats and Locomotives

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1910 – 1919 … Automobiles and Movies

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1920 – 1929 … Recreation and Refuge

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1930 – 1939 … Depression, Sporting and Tulelake

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1940 – 1949 … Internment and Homesteading

    Klamath Basin Timeline: 1950 – 1959 … Television, Radio and Airports

    klamath project timeline icona

    1950 – 1999… Timber, Ranches, Boomers

    2000 – Present… Legislation, Court decisions, Science Studies

    Modoc Indian War… Indians, Settlers, U.S. Army

    Acknowledgements
    Bill and LoEtta Cadman, Ina and Roy Reed, Pat McMillian, William Brady,
    Andrew Ortis, John Pratt, Art Eggleston, Rob Crawford – Crawford Farms,
    Bev Wampler, Gayle and Chuck Jaynes, Richard Kopczak and
    Cindy Wright are some of the many folks that allowed access to their
    libraries and, or, shared information to help Anders compile
    the above timelines.

    ©2015 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.