Oregon Places: "Without a Second's Warning": The Heppner Flood of 1903

Abstract

Oregon Places BobDenOuden "Wit h 11 iiI a Second's Warning" TheHeppner Floodof1903 ? top a hill in the rolling wheat fields and grazing lands ofMor /-Jk row County lies theHeppner cemetery. A walk through its mani ?jl JL cured lawns and orderly clusters of grave markers reveals much about the community nestled in the narrow valley below. The cemetery's ample room for growth speaks to the town ofHeppner's confidence in its own future.Many of the names inscribed on the family plots are those of town founders and figures important to the history of the area. Numerous plots contain multiple generations of familymembers, a testament to the town's strong roots. At the bottom of the hill, meandering in a lazy arc through the small town of Heppner, flowsWillow Creek. The stream, which sometimes dries up completely by late summer, normally runs ankle deep and up to seven feetwide inmid-June. On the afternoon of June 14, 1903, however, Willow Creek was fed by a tremendous cloudburst rain storm and turned into something quite different. The Heppner Gazette reported: Without a second'swarning, a leaping, foamingwall ofwater, 40 feetinheight, struck Heppner at about 5 o'clock Sunday afternoon, sweeping everythingbefore itand leavingonly death and destruction in its wake.1 As a result, June 14,1903, is a prominent date among the rows of head stones in the cemetery. The date also appears on a three-panel stonemonu ment thatwas dedicated in 2003 tomark the hundredth anniversary of the catastrophe. The monument, which includes a panoramic image of the 108 OHQ vol. 105, no. 1 ? 2004 Oregon Historical Society QHS neg.,OrHi 24345 Floodwaters moved through Heppner, Oregon, on June 14, 1903, destroying the town. The toppledtreesin this photographindicatethe forceof the flood.The PalaceHotel, one of the few buildings not destroyed in the event, stands at the center of the image. destruction wrought by the flood and a list of the names of almost 250 people who died as a result, serves as a quiet reminder ofHeppner's day of tragedy. Heppner is located inOregon's Morrow County where Hinton Creek, Shobe Creek, and Balm Fork merge with themuch largerWillow Creek. Willow Creek flows north for approximately seventy miles from its source in the Blue Mountains to itsconfluence with theColumbia River upstream of the town of Arlington, Oregon. After leaving itsmountainous head waters, the creek enters a narrow valley whose width never exceeds three quarters of a mile ? the kind of landscape often favored by early white settlerswho wanted to ensure that their towns had a reliable water supply. DenOuden, "Without a Second's Warning" 109 Heppner, shown here in 1901,was a booming agricultural shipping center serving north central Oregon. Aside fromtheforested headwaterhighlands,thebulkof the watershed is comprised of strongly undulating, treeless prairies dissected by numerous watercourses.2 This geographic province of north-central Oregon isknown as the Deschutes-Umatilla Plateau, a semiarid region that receives fewer than twenty inches of precipitation in a year. The rains that do occur often come in the form of intense thunderstorms thatdump several inches in less than an hour.3 As early as 1858, cattlemen began foraging their herds in the abundant grasses found along the creek bottoms in the Willow Creek Valley, estab lishing cattle camps that later grew into the valley's first settlements. The 1860s gold rush inOregon's JohnDay country, to the south of Heppner, prompted further economic growth. During this time, the Willow Creek Valley served as an important transportation route from the Columbia River steamship landings to the gold strikes.4 Itwas not until 1869, how ever, that the area's first land claim was established by George W. Stansbury, who built a cabin there.5Many others soon arrived, including some Or no OHQ vol. 105, no. 1 egon Trail pioneers who had made it to the Willamette Valley but longed for the open prairies to the east of the Cascade Range. Others were gold seekers who wished to give up their prospecting lifestyles and settle down inwhat became known as Stansbury Flat.6 In 1873,Henry Heppner and Jackson L. Morrow opened the first merchandise store in town to supply thenew inhabitants who tiredofpacking...