A gavel and a juniper block

The earliest object the record shows carrying the emblem, and it was made of Bend juniper.

At the luncheon of April 5, 1922, the chairman was calling the meeting to order the usual way, by tapping a spoon on a water glass. Carl A. Johnson stood up and interrupted him, on behalf of the Bend Iron Works.

This is a small thing that answers a large question. The archive has plenty of evidence that Bend used an emblem and almost none of what it was ever put on. Here is a specific object, on a specific day, made by a named local foundry from the local tree, carrying the emblem, and used to run a meeting.

It also sets the date. Ten weeks later, in June 1922, a committee reported favourably on adopting “the one adopted several years ago by the Emblem club”, the club gave permission for it to be used in any way the town saw fit, and the same Bend Iron Works announced it was ready to cast the emblem in aluminium for automobiles. The juniper block came first. The works was already putting the emblem on things before the town formally took it up.

Carl A. Johnson had been the Emblem Club's own first vice-president in 1918.