The melding of man and place

In memoriam: Bill Smith

The Old Mill District, Bend, Oregon (Photo by Mike Albright Photograpy)

Have you ever wondered why the city you live in is the way it is? I don’t only mean why your city government is the way it is, but, more broadly, why do the people who live in your city, well, live in your city? Most everything that matters about a place is downstream from the question of who lives there. Politics, government, the economy, charitable work, architecture and that hard-to-define but impossible-to-miss feel of a place all arise from the preferences, ambitions and will of those who call, or called, the place home.

My city, Bend, Oregon, thrives today as a post-timber, Zoom and outdoor lifestyle-driven boom town in good measure because of one man: Bill Smith. Bill, who conjured the Old Mill District, a vibrant commercial, residential, cultural, recreational and community hub from the rusting hulk of an actual, shuttered, old mill, died Friday night at the age of 81. Bill’s story is, in many ways, Bend’s story.

Bill grew up in Denver and graduated from the University of Colorado. After a stint aboard a Navy destroyer plying the waters off the shore of Vietnam in the early days of the war there, he entered the MBA program at Stanford. Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company, which had long operated the largest pine sawmill in the world on the banks of the Deschutes River just south of downtown Bend, recruited Bill to work at its new real estate development arm, Brooks Resources, in 1969. The lumber giant had large landholdings in Central Oregon and, presciently, sought to develop some of that land rather than continue to hold it for timber harvest.

Bill created the marketing plan for Black Butte Ranch outside of Sisters, Oregon. His success in coaxing professionals from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles to buy second homes there, and to spend their summer and Christmas vacations recreating in Central Oregon, was a hint of what was to come for the region.

Like many cities in the Pacific Northwest, Bend grew up around the region’s most marketable resource: timber. Shortly after the dawn of the 20th Century, Brooks-Scanlon built its mill across the river from another behemoth mill, owned by the Shevlin-Hixon company. By 1930, Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon made Bend the pine capital of the planet, the two mills operating around the clock and producing 500 million board feet of lumber per year. Brooks-Scanlon built a powerhouse for its second mill, called Mill B, that featured three tall smokestacks towering over any other structure in Bend.

Thousands of millworkers built homes for their families between downtown Bend and the mills. (The first house I owned in Bend was built in 1917 by a guy named Robert Smith who worked on the line at the Shevlin-Hixon mill, using lumber from that mill). Millworker families needed stores and schools and, eventually, cars and appliances. Bend experienced its first boom, changing from a frontier town into a small industrial city with global reach.

By the time Bill arrived in Bend in 1969, the mills were past their prime. Much of their privately held timberlands had been harvested, requiring timber purchases from the Forest Service and other landholders. Competition from pine operations in the American south ate into market share. Brooks-Scanlon had acquired its cross-river rival, along with its large timberland holdings, in 1950 and shortly thereafter shuttered the Shevlin-Hixon mill. In 1994, Crown-Pacific Partners, which had acquired the Brooks-Scanlon mill in the 1980s, closed the mill for good.

At that moment in history, and in the decade-plus preceding as the timber industry atrophied, Bend teetered on the economic precipice so familiar to timber-dependent towns struggling to adapt to new market and regulatory realities (Bill Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan, curtailing harvests from federal forests, was enacted in 1994). But Bend’s economic plummet was, unlike that of places like Coos Bay, Burns, Aberdeen, Washington (the city of my birth) and countless other Northwest towns, arrested and, dramatically, reversed.

Why? There are many reasons, including Bend’s fortune of being located in a visually stunning natural setting on the dry side of the Cascade mountains that adorn its western skyline. A man named Bill Healy had founded a little ski area at Bachelor Butte (now Mt. Bachelor) just 20 minutes outside of town. The groundwork for tourism had been laid with the aforementioned Black Butte Ranch and Sunriver, another resort project south of Bend.

But it was Bill who had the vision, will and temerity to refashion the blighted hulk of Bend’s past into the gleaming icon of its future. Bill led a team of investors in acquiring the former mill sites along the river, with the goal of turning them into a new centerpiece for the city, with shops, restaurants, offices, houses and more. He persevered through the years of land use, permitting and environmental challenges that accompanied turning an 80-year-old industrial site into a place where people work, shop and play.

Bill’s Old Mill today retains many historic elements highlighting the industrial history of the site. The three decommissioned smokestacks of Mill B’s powerhouse now tower over an REI store, symbolizing Bend’s transition from mill town to outdoor recreation mecca. The stacks, with the giant American flag flying from the middle one, remain the most recognizable built feature in Bend. Thanks to Bill.

Along the way, Bill and his dynamic wife, Trish, were involved in countless charitable and policy efforts, restoring and preserving the natural riverfront through the Old Mill, helping to lead the creation of a four-year university in Bend, and, most recently, investing in the region’s only daily newspaper, the Bend Bulletin to help save it from bankruptcy. You could tell what charitable endeavors Bill and Trish were working on by driving through the Old Mill and seeing the light post flags heralding various community organizations.

I didn’t always agree with Bill. When I was mayor of Bend, he thought we should abandon the city’s surface water source instead of spending the tens of millions of dollars it would take to bring it into compliance with federal regulations. I didn’t think the city could afford to lose that source. In the end, we kept the water source, but Bill’s imprint was left on the makeup of future city councils.

More recently, Bill and I occasionally had friendly talks about politics. I’m proud to say that Bill was an Oregon Roundup subscriber. He would occasionally send me brief responses, such as providing me with an online pronunciation guide to the word “troglodyte,” after I’d written about my affinity for the word, as one does.

Bill Smith leaves an unrivaled mark on the built characteristics of Bend and, relatedly, the people who choose to call this place home. He played a central role in shaping Bend’s post-timber economy. But for Bill, Bend would be a less attractive, charitable, striving and vibrant place. In the account of why my city is the way it is, Bill was the indispensable man.

RIP.