In 1913 a club of at most forty men agreed to wear one emblem until Bend had a hundred thousand people. The town had counted 536 at the last census. It got there. This is what the surviving record says about the men who promised it, and what it does not.
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to 1912 Bend counted 536 in 1910
The oldest Bend Emblem this project has found
July 3, 1912
A land company's brand, printed a page high, over a notice that claims copyright and promises a lifetime.
Historic Oregon Newspapers · University of Oregon Libraries
A Seattle land company drew a mark for a town of two thousand and printed it a page high, six months before anyone swore by it.
Read this chapter · about 3 minutes · 16 records
1913 Bend last counted 536 in 1910
January 8, 1913
The Bulletin's report of the dinner, four days on: candle shades, emblemized ice cream, twenty men, and a club the paper already knew.
Historic Oregon Newspapers · University of Oregon Libraries
Twenty men, two glasses of champagne each, and the strangest set of club rules in Oregon.
Read this chapter · about 5 minutes · 8 records
1914–1916 Bend last counted 536 in 1910
September 13, 1914
The Oregon Journal's page on the Portland visit: a guest in convict's stripes, a hold-up at the jail, a mock eruption of Lava Butte.
Historic Oregon Newspapers · University of Oregon Libraries
The oath, and three years of keeping it in public: a log house on the river, a governor at dinner, and the emblem set into glass.
Read this chapter · about 3 minutes · 20 records
1917–1922 Bend counted 5,415 in 1920
May 10, 1919
The only photograph of the house from the club's own years, printed the week the reorganized club bought it back.
The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon
The emblem gets onto butter and lumber, the money runs out, and in 1922 the town is told it may use the mark any way it sees fit.
Read this chapter · about 5 minutes · 81 records
1923–1929 Bend last counted 5,415 in 1920
May 13, 1924
The front page the day after the vote: seven directors to sell the house, a membership “limited to 50”, and a founding date the paper's own files contradict.
The Bend Bulletin · Google News Archive
The club votes itself out of existence, and an editorial says what was left: the emblem, given to the town for the use of all.
Read this chapter · about 3 minutes · 10 records
1930–2010 Bend counted 76,639 in 2010
April 14, 1955
The last photograph of the house, taken with its end in view. Fourteen months later it was razed.
The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon
A silver cup, a log house, a pane of glass and a newspaper banner carry the mark through eighty years when almost nobody photographed it.
Read this chapter · about 4 minutes · 58 records
2011–2021 Bend counted 99,178 in 2020
The best advertised town in the northwest
January 18, 1917
A visiting lodge officer predicts fifteen thousand people by 1918, in the club's own dining room. The oath's arithmetic, said out loud.
The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon
Bend passed a hundred thousand in 2021, a hundred and eight years after twenty men promised to wear a pin until it did.
Read this chapter · about 1 minute · 29 records
since 2022 Bend last counted 99,178 in 2020
The drawing this site gives away, beside the impression it was traced from, at the same size. The resemblance is measured; the number is on the emblems page.
1912 impression: Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon Libraries. The adaptation: this project.
The club is gone. The emblem is on flags, signs and windows, and here are the files.
Read this chapter · about 1 minute · 14 records
1910–2020the promise
Bend passed 100,000 in 2021 and has kept growing.
14 filed records carry no date and are not plotted above. They are listed in the archive rather than guessed into a decade.
Every chapter lists the records it leans on, closed under its own prose. Together they are 99 sources; 236 dated records sit along this line, and the archive holds all of them with their page images, their selected passages and their outbound links.
