The Bend Park and Recreation District plans to restore a cultural artifact after years of deterioration, due to exposure to harsh weather and a lack of significant upkeep. The High Wheels, a piece of equipment used to transport logs in the early 1900s, is displayed in Drake Park as a piece of history, meant to signify the city’s history as a logging town.
Following the community’s desire to maintain the structure, BPRD will share the current state of the High Wheels and its options for restoration at a Jan. 7 board meeting. BPRD is responsible for maintenance on the wheel because of its placement in Drake Park. Due to its severe deterioration, the wheel requires a significant amount of work to remain on-site.
The High Wheels have been a feature of Drake Park for 84 years, according to Kelly Cannon-Miller with the Deschutes Historical Museum. High wheels, used before motorized tractors, would be attached to a team of horses to move logs from the forest to the railroad and stood at about 11 feet in diameter. At one point, Cannon-Miller said, there were over 50 sets of high wheels and 200 horses working in Central Oregon forests.
A wheel was donated to the City of Bend by Brooks-Scanlon, one of the major lumber mills in Bend during the 1900s. The wheels were slowly replaced with tractors in the 1920s and were largely taken apart to recycle materials during the Second World War, which means very few exist today.
Since being placed in Drake Park as an artifact, the wheel has been pulled from the park twice for repairs, once in the 1960s and once in the early 2000s, according to Cannon-Miller. An assessment in 2001 recommended a complete restoration and rebuild, along with the implementation of a maintenance plan to prevent further deterioration. However, BPRD performed a less extensive, cosmetic restoration.
According to Sasha Sulia, BPRD director of park services, the District’s work in the early 2000s included minor maintenance, like repairing some of the rot, replacing bolts and painting the wheel.
In addition to its temporary repairs, the wheels have been exposed to persistent water exposure since 2001. The most recent assessment on the artifact, completed in 2018, found that the wheels have not been shielded from water caused by the irrigation system and had no drainage beneath it.
“This level of water exposure hastened the loss of any stabilization provided in 2000 and the overall historic fabric,” said Cannon-Miller. “At this point, they really have to go the route of a full restoration. It’s past being able to do any temporary fixes.”
As BPRD assesses its restoration options, finding someone with the ability and knowledge to do this type of work is increasingly difficult.
“It’s a dwindling set of people,” said Cannon-Miller. The price to repair the wheel could also be significant, as a full restoration or replacement requires BPRD to ship it to a specialty wheelwright.
“We’ve reached out to a few companies that do this restoration work, and the cost came in significantly higher than what we were expecting,” said Sulia. “So, our staff in-house is looking at what they can do within the money that we’ve obligated to kind of do the best restoration they can do, so that it’s stable and can be put back on site and be safe, to still honor the history.”
According to Sulia, the estimated cost for a full restoration from a wheelwright ranges from $50,000 to $200,000.
BPRD will move the wheel offsite within the next few months, said Sulia. During that time, it will assess the wheel to see if they can do the work in-house.
“If we can’t, then we’ll have to change course and probably have a larger discussion,” she said.
While the work needed to mend the wheel will require time and money, the community sees this as an important endeavor for BPRD.
“There is significant support in the community to repair them,” said Cannon-Miller. “I’m happy that the conversation has started again, and that now is a moment where there’s support within the community to help get some of the work done and help shepherd that.”
This article appears in The Source Weekly January 2, 2025.
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How about Brooks Resources steps up and maintains the wheel that was their wheel in the first place? Oh that’s right. They are only interested in keeping their billion dollar train moving right along as they work with developers and the City of Bend to ruin a once amazing mountain town, turning it into Disneyland in the Woods for California.