But Irving Allen, Harney County's district attorney, has evidence of another kind of problem concerning Meadowland. A man using the name "Jess Bontrager" and other aliases contracted with many new Meadowland owners to clear their land of sagebrush.

Allen estimates that Bontrager collected between $60,000 and $70,000. “He took their money, but he never cleared the land. He only cleared out," the peppery district attorney says.

And Allen is still looking for Bontrager.

In addition to clearing land, buyers must grapple with the problem of getting water. But how deep will they have to go? It's hard to say. It depends on who you talk to and who you believe. Young Dooley and Hardin say no deeper than 100 feet. Vogler says wells range from 80 to 500 feet, averaging out at 225 to 250 feet. And Hotchkiss and others speak of cases where wells have gone down to 900-some of them without ever reaching water.

If the facts about Meadowland seem rather confused, there is a reason. Usually the best people to supply authoritative answers about land are the people who own the land and are living on it. But the 55,000-acre vastness of Meadowland is virtually uninhabited. And when I asked Dooley for the name of a woman whose field he pointed out with pride to demonstrate the area's agricultural potential, he replied that the "law" would not allow him to name her.

"All ajitter from the city, you walk onto your pine-covered lot. Your steps are quiet on the blanket of needles. The wind whispers softly. Birds chirp."

[From the Eugene (Oreg.) Register-Guard, Emerald Empire, Sept. 26, 1965]

SUBDIVIDING THE WIDE OPEN SPACES: III

HAPPINESS IS FIVE ACRES OF ANYTHING

It can be covered with pine trees or nothing but sagebrush, sloshing with water or dry as a bone. If it's land-and if it isn't covered with freeways yet-it's going to look mighty good to a Californian.

(By Sam Frear)

Christmas Lake is one of those puzzles in the naming of Oregon: No one is quite sure where the name originated. For many years it was frequently asserted that noted explorer John C. Fremont, sometimes called "The Pathfinder," named the frequently dry lake after arriving there on Christmas Eve, 1843. Evidence now indicates that Fremont actually gave this name to what is currently known as Hart Lake further south and that the word "Christmas" first appeared on maps as an alleged river close to the existing valley. The first map using this word was prepared in 1838 under the direction of Col. J. J. Abert (after whom, incidently, is named Lake Abert and the Abert Rim). However it was named, Christmas Lake is a geographical area unvisited by most Oregonians but familiar to them by reputation. And the contemporary puzzle about Christmas Lake that bewilders many Oregonians is this: Why would thousands of people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy its acres of sagebrush and sand? Christmas Lake has become one of Oregon's best known geographic landmarks due to a gigantic land boom which has been going on there for the past four years and which shows no deductable sign of diminishing in intensity. It involves some 80,000 acres of land described in the flat legal prose of the Oregon Real Estate Commission as "generally level, mostly sagebrush cover in a relatively remote area." (Incidently 80,000 acres is fairly large; it would five times cover the City of Eugene). The Real Estate Commission's description of Christmas Lake might be considered by some as an understatement: The "valley" is indeed flat, covered with sagebrush as far as the eye can see, and then some, and is 100 miles from Bend, Burns and Lakeview. In addition, it is in the midst of the Oregon desert, subject to extremes of temperature, and with frost likely any night on the calendar.

And there isn't a tree in sight, except for an evergreen planted in "town" that long ago turned quite brown.

It is possible, in fact, to find people in Lakeview who remember when the land was selling for a couple of dollars an acre and there weren't any takers. Now,

it is selling for several hundred dollars an acre and there are buyers by the thousands.

To the untutored eye the land at Christmas Lake hasn't changed much it is still remote, flat and covered by sagebrush. Yet, the testimony from people who have invested or are now investing, say, $50 a month for an acreage is a paean of praise. And is there a better test of a fair sale than a contented purchaser? Oregonians, familiar with all the diversity and beauty of their state, may look askance at happy Californians buying a subdivision plot in the wide open spaces. The modern-day would-be homesteader, however, is certain he is purchasing several acres of paradise.

In 1962 Oregon Real Estate Commissioner Robert Jensen asked several hundred owners of Christmas Lake acreages about their purchases. The overwhelming majority reported they were pleased with their land and reported they invested for speculation and/or to provide themselves with a future retirement site. Few actually had plans to move to the area.

While even Oregonians, including a few from Eugene, have bought Christmas Lake lots, the area is predominantly owned by Californians. They represent a wide range of occupations such as electroplaters, stock clerks, salesmen, mechanics, technicians, and gas station operators.

Some of the people buying Christmas Lake land are these:

Mrs. Bert Dela Croce of Winchester, Calif., owns with her husband a 20-acre "farm" site and a 22-acre "town" site. Their plans are vague and indefinite, and words like "hope" and "perhaps" frequently pop up in their discussions about their land. In any case, Mrs. Dela Croce said, "We always can leave the kids five acres each."

Paul Cutler of Salinas, Calif., who has 120 acres, is equally vague about why he bought Christmas Lake land and what he will do with it. He has owned the property for three years and allows that he is willing to wait another three years to see what will happen.

Another Californian, Mrs. Paul Abrew of Castroville, bought the land "purely as an investment." She likes the area, but in the three years she has owned a 22 acre site she has discovered other parts of Oregon she likes better.

George Marano of Los Angeles says he bought a 10-acre site and a commercially zoned lot for investment purposes. He says that someday, perhaps, he might like to open an Italian restaurant in Christmas Lake Valley. Not right away, though, he laughingly adds, "because I don't think jackrabbits like spaghetti." An out-and-out boomer for Christmas Lake is Fred Cairnes of Daly City, Calif. He employs every adjective in the book, with phrases straight from an adman's manual.

I talked to all these people not long ago at Christmas Lake lodge where they were staying a few days under a special vacation plan for property owners offered by the developers. Some were seeing their sagebrush acreages for the fourth time and still expressed satisfaction with it.

What they like about the wide open spaces of Christmas Lake are the "atmosphere" and the climate, the "openness" and friendliness of the people. Comments in the guestbook at Christmas Lake lodge include such words as "fantastic" and "I am very satisfied with the property" and "beautiful" and "I'd move here if I could."

In fact, says Mrs. Abrew with a thoughtful shake of her head, "I am continually surprised by the enthusiasm shown by some of these people. Yet there is nothing for anyone to do. If you move here, what on earth are you going to do? Our 15-year-old son said as we drove in, 'How did you get snookered into buying this; it's like inner Siberia.' And sometimes I wonder myself."

As Mrs. Abrew's teenager graphically noted, the first impressions of Christmas Lake are hardly impressive. Things are rapidly swallowed up in the sea of sage. A pot-holed road leads in from state highway 31, past rocky hills and agedlooking juniper trees, and then out into a flat valley that seems to stretch on and on, then on some more.

The first signs of Christmas Lake, curiously, are bright red fire hydrants. These lonely sentinels of civilization prompted a remarks by Lake County Commissioner C. W. Ogle: "I told them that they were being awfully nice to those jackrabbits and coyotes."

The main drag, if it is one, of Christmas Lake consists of a bar and a store and an office for the M. Penn Phillips Co., a huge California-based development firm. Farther down the road is a gas station.

Between these things and the other buildings of the development are large open areas criss-crossed by roads. Telephone poles poke up, a few signboards the red fire hydrants, and other evidence of man's presence appear here and there. In the early days of Christmas Lake promotion, advertisements were run in newspapers throughout the West telling about the sale of "farms" and "ranches" sold "solely for commercial agricultural purposes" in the "rich heartland of Oregon!"

"A major land rush is underway in Oregon," the ads pronounced in 1961. "Christmas Valley-112 square miles of fertile land on the leeward eastern watershed of the Cascades."

And people were urged "back to the farm-1961 style."

The promotion of farmsites at Christmas Valley prompted much attention. The Oregon Real Estate Commissioner was alerted (and ultimately, in 1963, the Oregon Subdivision Law was enacted by the legislature). At the time, however, people with agricultural pursuits in mind had only to pull out the magazine, Oregon's Agricultural Progress for 1956. In this publication it was stated that homesteaders in this area "face a long, hard pull if they expect to make a ‘go' of farming."

The Lake County Extension Service also has a bulletin urging a cautious approach to agriculture at Christmas Valley.

And so, for one reason or another, the sales pitch at Christmas Valley has changed. Sales Manager Mel Brown, a master at using homely, small talk to convincingly sell acreages, thinks the change in promotion is "probably an accident." Nowadays, he says, "recreation is the big thing" and people are interested in land for vacation or retirement sites.

While serious questions were raised about Christmas Valley's once-vaunted agricultural potential, other predictions made by the promoters in 1961 have come true.

Advertisements then told of "plans for the Christmas Valley community center" including a 5,000 foot airstrip, a lodge, trailer park, garage, store, filling station, dude ranch, quarterhorse race track, and a 9-hole golf course.

They are all there today.

The lodge in 1965 is the focal point for the development, containing a restaurant and lounge faciilties, and the pro shop for the golf course. The lodge looks out on a 30-acre artificial lake fed by a gushing pipe from a large underground water supply. At the end of the lake, some 3,000 feet from the lodge, is a new motel. Next to this is the recreation hall. And near this is the trailer park. The curious thing about Christmas Valley is that the subdivisions sell lots in a "town" that includes zoned areas. There are some 3,000 acres in the "townsite" divided up into more than 1,600 lots which are zoned commercial, industrial or residential.

As a result, people coming 500 miles from California to buy a piece of land in the Oregon desert may wind up with a lot in "town" that is only slightly larger than a standard subdivision lot in Eugene or Springfield.

And the 15 homes built so far at Christmas Valley-and all by employes-are in a limited area with setbacks and side-yard clearances similar to any city dwelling.

The red fire hydrants are to serve these city lots. These also have a piped water supply for $3.50 a month. If a person buys "ranch" land outside the "town" he must dig his own well and do without the red fire hydrants.

There are about 4,000 of the "ranch" lots, with five-acre patches going for $790. Those 20 acres and larger sell for $1,890 and up. The majority of ranch sales are for 20 acres. Brown says, "and 9 out of 10 are happy with the deal."

A few years ago Judge Ogle was worried about Christmas Lake Valley. In November, 1962, he warned the Assn. of Oregon Counties that there will be a water problem at Christmas Valley. "Just suppose that all those 72,000 acres are filled up and people dig wells," he said. Then, about the ability to make a living from farming on the land, he said: "I know damned well it can't be done." Judge Ogle feels differently these days. "I was scared to death of this deal," he says now. "But I have changed my mind because they have done everything they agreed to do. They have had their troubles, but they are fine people." The M. Penn Phillips Co. found a "tremendous water supply," contracted with Lake County to maintain roads, and has had an "enormous" impact on the county, employing people and paying taxes, Ogle states.

If you leave Christmas Valley and travel about 95 miles as the crow flies, southwest to Klamath County, you'll find a place modestly described * ** well, read it from the brochure:

"Picture traveling the country over *** through dry deserts, dusty terrain, parched water-starved lands * ** and then suddenly finding a ‘garden of Eden' adjacent to a National Forest, a veritable oil painting, created in greens and blues. *** And imagine being able to say: 'I own this land!' This is Klamath Falls Forest Estates!"

Armed with the boldly-colored brochure picturing lakes and rivers and snow, filled with imaginative prose exclaiming the delights of the Forest Estates, the traveller heads westward out of Klamath Falls.

Following a black-topped road for 25 miles, he suddenly notices little signs tacked to the pine trees. At first, they simply say "View Lots." Then, "Trees, Lake lots just ahead." Or, "Highway Acreage Just Ahead." Or, "Full Price $540 while they last" and "21⁄2 acres $15.00 down/month."

Carl Botefuhr, of Studio City, Calif., was at the log cabin house serving as the tract's sales office. A casually dressed man, Botefuhr is general sales manager for Klamath Falls Forest Estates and proves it with a honey-like voice that is never at a loss for the right adjective.

"In the last 90 to 120 days the whole tenor of our sales has changed," Botefuhr says, "Just the word 'Oregon' is attractive and instead of being hesitant, those who call us say, 'Please send the salesman over right away, I'm leaving tomorrow to see the land." "

The word "development” is not appropriate for Klamath Falls Forest Estates, Botefuhr says. In fact, the company is doing little with the land except blading out rough roads through the pine trees.

"We want to maintain a rural feeling," Botefur explains smoothly. "The whole idea is not to do something. People come up here with the basic desire to do something with their own hands. The people who buy seem to have the pioneer spirit that a lot of people don't have anymore."

To pioneer at Klamath Falls Estates, a person pays a "basic" price of $895 for a 22-acre plot. The word basic means that you probably will pay more, with prices escalating according to lot size and location.

Imagine that you are a refugee from the traffic and smog-choked suburbs of Los Angeles arriving in Oregon for the first time to see your 22-acre rural lot. At the tract office you will be directed to your property via such "streets" as Teal Street or Goldeneye Lane or Mina Bird Drive.

Admittedly, the dirt roads are rough and you drive carefully to avoid breaking an axle. But, after all, you are a pioneer. Finally, you stop your car at the proper place to step out.

You walk onto your pine-covered lot. Your steps are quiet on the blanket of needles. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. Now you are in the middle of your 21⁄2 acres. The wind whistles softly in the trees. Birds chirp.

Maybe someday you will wonder if that rough track out there is really a road, and where you will get water, and how far away stores are. But for the moment***?

"People treat this as a family treasury," Botefuhr declares. "They take pictures and keep them in their wallet. Then they can pull it out and say "That's my land in Oregon'."

"Oregonians may look at this land and think it is marginal," says George Callison, manager of the Klamath County Chamber of Commerce. "But to a Californian, he comes up and five acres out there looks wonderful."

Since the philosophy at Klamath Falls Forest Estates is "not to do something," the would-be settler will find that bringing comforts to his 22 acres of piny woods is something of a chore.

The nearest electric service lines are three airline miles distance, according to the Oregon Real Estate Commission. The nearest telephone lines are four to eight miles away. There is no organized fire protection district. It will be necessary for purchasers to develop their own individual septic tank systems. The nearest complete shopping facilities are 25 miles away, as is the nearest medical help.

And then there is the question of water.

The California Division of Real Estate estimates that the average cost of putting in a domestic water system will be $1,300 per lot. Which means that some people may have a bigger investment for water than for land.

Jack Giffin of Bonanza, leaning on a corral fence near the "estates," hitched his boot on the water trough, "Water?" he asked. "Everyone with common sense knows there is no water for every 22 acres in timber country."

Giffin tilted back his crumpled hat. "I can't understand what these buyers are going to do. I can see it if they like to come out in the country, but I can't understand why working people would come out here. And pretty near all I talk to are working people." All in all, though, Jack Giffin thinks the land is a "good deal for people, and I don't think anyone is getting hurt by it."

This is Callison's opinion, too, although he does find criticism for the developer's over-enthusiastic and often gooey advertising techniques.

Sales Manager Botefuhr took pleasure, as does the company's brochure, in mentioning famous people who have purchased lots. But on a random tour of the estate you're apt to find only working people.

I found, for example, two families living in a large trailer. The father-in-law was unemployed and attempting to dig a well by hand. He was about 10 feet down and by Giffin's estimate had about 90 feet to go. Meanwhile, the families were hauling water.

Then there was a little red trailer with a partially built cabin nearby. The sole adult was a woman working as a nurse in Klamath Falls. There was a jerrybuilt privy and no well.

And then there was 77-year-old Theodore Linsmeier, a retired carpenter from San Jose, Calif. He and his wife paid more than $2,000 for 2-acres of highway land and are quite content with their purchase. They plan to remain on their land for the summer, then pull their trailer southward to the sun for the winter. Why did he buy? "Why should you drive miles and miles for recreation and not be sure of what you have?" he answered. "Why not buy your own acreage?" Oh yes, it is quiet, Linsmeier allowed. "But we don't mind that. We can get away from it all."

The two are proud of a small, carefully fenced in garden where they are growing corn and beans and lettuce irrigated by water hauled five miles from Bonanza.

Linsmeier shows respect for his land. There is nothing, not even a twig, lying carelessly around. He has made little paths and planted flowers.

At the two-family trailer where the man was drilling the well, much effort had been expended to clear away all the brush, making the five acres look like a Japanese forest. At another home, rocks were whitewashed and placed in straight lines to denote pathways. On one tree there is a sign proudly proclaiming that what may appear to others as a patch of piny woods is really "Buncker's Retreat."

Similar loving care has been lavished throughout Klamath Falls Forest Estates, giving proof to the claim that purchasers thing of their holdings not as just four of five acres of marginal land, but as a family treasure.

[From the Eugene (Oreg.) Register-Guard, Emerald Empire, Oct. 3, 1965]
SUBDIVIDING THE WIDE OPEN SPACES: CONCLUSION

BUY LAND, YES-BUT WISELY!

Land values are moving steadily up with no end in sight, so if you want a chunk of Oregon for your own, this may be the time to buy. But which land, and at what price?

(By Sam Frear)

Oregon Real Estate Commissioner Robert Jensen tells a story about himself. Several years ago a relative offered to sell him at minimal price 120 lots on the Oregon Coast. At that time, Jensen says, he couldn't be bothered with developing the land, partly because he lacked the time. So he passed up the offer.

Today those 120 lots are part of a much larger resort subdivision in which lots are selling for several thousand dollars each. Jensen shakes his head ruefully to think of the returns a small investment in 120 lots would have made.

"But that is the problem with Oregonians," he remarks. And for a state in which timber is a leading industry he uses an appropriate adage: "They can't see the forest for the trees."