{
  "id": "bb-1953-06-16",
  "title": "Bend Iron Works marks fifty years",
  "publisher": "The Bend Bulletin",
  "sourceClass": "primary",
  "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1953-06-16/ed-1/seq-50/",
  "accessedOn": "2026-09-11",
  "notes": "A full-page anniversary advertisement with dated 1916, 1922 and 1953 photographs of the foundry reported in 1922 as ready to cast the emblem in aluminium. None carries the emblem.",
  "record": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/bb-1953-06-16/",
  "evidence": {
    "id": "bb-1953-06-16",
    "kind": "history",
    "date": "1953-06-16",
    "summary": "The foundry that was to cast aluminium emblems in 1922 shows fifty years of its own marks, and none is the emblem.",
    "findings": [
      "The advertisement, in the Bulletin’s Golden Jubilee edition, carries three dated photographs: the first pour in the foundry in 1916, the first major expansion in 1922, and the first trade name in 1953.",
      "The 1922 building is lettered BEND / IRON WORKS / MACHINE SHOP, WELDING / BLACKSMITHING in plain painted capitals. The 1953 trade name is a shield reading “Bifco” above a banner reading BEND IRON WORKS.",
      "No emblem appears in any of the three photographs or anywhere in the advertisement."
    ],
    "limitations": [
      "This does not contradict the June 1922 report that the firm was ready to cast the emblem in aluminium for automobiles. It shows the emblem was not the foundry’s own mark.",
      "No casting has been located."
    ],
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        "accessedOn": "2026-09-11",
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        "title": "Bend Iron Works marks fifty years.",
        "rights": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon; documentary reproduction, excluded from the project artwork license.",
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  "exhibit": {
    "id": "bb-1953-06-16",
    "title": "Bend Iron Works marks fifty years",
    "intro": "In 1953 the foundry that once offered to cast the emblem in aluminium advertised fifty years of its own history, and the emblem was not in it.",
    "body": [
      "In June 1922 the Bulletin reported that the Bend Iron Works stood ready to cast the emblem in aluminium for automobiles. Thirty-one years later the firm bought a full page in the paper’s Golden Jubilee edition and told its own history in three photographs, each with a dated caption. Those captions are set apart below, because the third one is the finding.",
      "“1953: OUR FIRST TRADE NAME.” The photograph under it shows a new sign reading “Bifco”. A foundry that had offered to cast the town’s emblem in 1922 went thirty-seven years without a mark of its own, and when it finally took one it was not the emblem.",
      "The 1922 photograph shows the building in the very year of the casting report, lettered in plain painted capitals — BEND IRON WORKS, MACHINE SHOP, WELDING, BLACKSMITHING. Neither sign is the emblem, and neither is anything like it.",
      "That is not a disappointment so much as a confirmation. The emblem belonged to the town and was lent to everyone, and the record keeps showing that even the people who made it and owned it did not keep it for themselves."
    ],
    "related": [
      "bb-1922-06-15"
    ],
    "date": "1953-06-16",
    "collection": "club-life",
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        "caption": "Fifty years of Bend Iron Works, in the Golden Jubilee edition.",
        "alt": "A full-page newspaper advertisement for Bend Iron Works with three dated photographs of the foundry in 1916, 1922 and 1953.",
        "credit": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon",
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    "publication": "The Bend Bulletin",
    "quote": "BELIEVE US, The FIRST 50 Years ARE THE HARDEST\n\n1916 — 1953\n\n1916: OUR FIRST POUR IN THE FOUNDRY\n\n1922: OUR FIRST MAJOR EXPANSION\n\n1953: OUR FIRST TRADE NAME\n\nDESIGNERS FOUNDERS MACHINISTS FABRICATORS\n\nBEND IRON WORKS"
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      "title": "Fifty years of Bend Iron Works, in the Golden Jubilee edition.",
      "rights": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon",
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