Adair Tract Purchase

Paul M. Dunn: with the area that's handled by the School of Agriculture; except, as we collaborated and have harvested some of the timber from their tract. You realize that there are patches of timber on some of the agricultural areas. We drew a line on a map to indicate the areas.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: An attempt to locate this map has been unsuccessful. It may have simply represented an informal agreement, or been subsequently destroyed.]

Paul M. Dunn: I think there is a fence there now. The School of Forestry, or I through the School of Forestry, arranged a loan from the School of Forestry budget to the Agricultural School to get them started. This was helpful, you might say, in easing their feelings. That is the story up to this point. There were some critical questions on the part of the administration as to what the dollar value of the property would be. I recall one letter that I have, in which President Strand questioned my judgment in acquiring the land. However, when it was eventually deeded to us, we got the property with 100% discount. It was valued at $150,000 but there was an appraisal charge of $1,836. President Strand raised his eyebrows and wondered who was going to pay that fee for the property. I paid it out of the Forestry School budget, and in a sense we got that 6,200 acres of land by the good will of the government for $1,836. Shortly we started harvesting timber from the area. You may be acquainted with the timber sale. We set up the program in 1951, I think it was, and prepared a timber sale on the Adair Tract which brought a return of $201,000 for 7,000,000 feet of timber which was only a portion of the total timber. I don't have the detailed figures at hand of how much additional timber has been sold. We traded some timber for two different pieces of land that are now part of the McDonald Forest. One of the earlier appraisals, I think, about five or six years ago, estimated the value of the Adair tract at a million dollars.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Mary Rowley says that some of the timber has shrapnel remnants from some of the activities from World War II.

Paul M. Dunn: That's true. If you read the wire from Senator Guy Cordon that I received, it so noted as a precaution. [Dunn is reading]: "The approval was made subject to the usual conditions for the following two additional conditions. The State Board of Higher Education is to furnish WAAA with airmail acknowledgment, that it is

Paul M. Dunn: accepting transfer of this property with the full knowledge that substantial portions thereof are hazardous because of explosive contamination and the State Board of Higher Education shall be required to give, at its own expense, wide publicity in posting on the property, directing the attention of the public to the dangers inherent of the explosive contamination of the property in a matter satisfactory to the Assets Administration." [End of wire] You see, that area with a hill in the background was a firing area for artillery and I think some other types of war weapons, also. There were a lot of duds in the area, undoubtedly, and a fair amount of the timber was penetrated by bullets. I think they used rifle fire as well as artillery fire. So far as I know there has been no evidence of any injury to anyone.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: No one has ever been hurt from an exploding device?

Paul M. Dunn: No. The timber company that bought this sale knew the story and, of course, they were cognizant of the hazard and took precautions in the sawing of the timber in the mills. The timber was logged by the Willamette Valley Lumber Company based in Dallas, which is now the Willamette Industries. There's no evidence of any injury to anyone from the tract.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: What other activities did the military have besides the artillery range? Were there maneuvers of some type?

Paul M. Dunn: Oh, yes, all kinds. They used the rest of the 90,000 acres for all kinds of maneuvers, bivouacs, overnight camping, and training grounds. They had rifle battalions, machine gun battalions, and artillery, and of course, the quarter master corps and the hospital corps were adjuncts. It was a training area for all of those military units.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Was anybody ever killed during training exercises in the Forest?

Paul M. Dunn: No. Not that I know of. The odds are, of course, they might not have been reported. The military doesn't go around telling a lot about accidents.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: When was your name officially given to the Adair Tract? That is not what it originally was know as, was it?

Paul M. Dunn: The "Adair Tract" was the term I used. I don't recall the date of the name change, as I was not here. It must have been done after 1956. I guess by Dean McCulloch.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Is there any last comment you have about either Forest before we quit?