We’re Paige and Mason. The Bend Banner is our way of keeping tabs on this wild, beautiful place we call home. To the mornings that start with coffee and mountain air, the trails that somehow always lead to a brewery, and the kind of small-town stories that remind you why you chose to live here in the first place.

The Creek In Your Kitchen Sink

We had friends in town from San Diego last week. Within an hour, one of them asked where our fridge water filter was. We don’t have one.

So I walked them over to the kitchen sink and poured a glass. Then I started rambling about Bend’s water. Where it comes from. How good it is. How nobody here bothers with filters.

They gave me the nod. Then they took a sip.

That was the whole argument. One sip and they were sold.

Before 1926, Bend drank from the Deschutes. That went about how you’d guess. The water was getting contaminated, so the city bought the private water company in 1924 and went looking for something cleaner.

They found it 11 miles west of town. A cold, spring-fed creek coming out of the Cascades, just below Tumalo Falls.

There was one problem. The name.

Tumalo had a bad reputation. The irrigation projects out there had spent about 30 years tangled up in fraud, bad management, and worse. Nobody wanted the town’s drinking water attached to that.

So Bend renamed its stretch of the creek. Tumalo Creek became Bridge Creek.

Same water. Better PR.

We’ve been drinking from it for almost 100 years now.

The coolest part? The intake sits about 1,000 feet higher than town. The water doesn’t need to be pumped. It just runs downhill through 10 miles of pipe and comes out of your faucet. Gravity does the work.

The land around it is protected, too. It’s been protected by the Forest Service since 1926. No camping. No fires. No bikes. No dogs. Nobody’s up there messing with it.

Bridge Creek covers about half the water we drink. In summer, when every sprinkler in town is running, the city pulls from groundwater wells to cover the rest.

So here’s the trip your glass of water took. Snowmelt and springs high in the Cascades. Down Bridge Creek. Ten miles of pipe, all downhill. Then your kitchen sink.

You can even go see where it starts. Drive out Skyliners Road to Tumalo Falls before snow closes the road for the season. Some of the water above those falls ends up in your sink.

How do you take your Bend water?

This Week’s Conditions
☀️ Sunrise: 6:44 am
🌅 Sunset: 4:52 pm
High Temp: 65°F :)
Mt. Bachelor: 6” base depth
Local Restaurant of the Week: M’s Bakery

🐾Bend’s Best Good Boys & Good Girls 🐾

🐶 Eli – 6 Years, Mix
He loves to play with other dogs, but can be overwhelming to some pups.

🐕 Milo – 5 Years - Mix
He’s a super sweet dog with a big appetite. He came in with another dog, but besides that dog, he hasn’t been super good with the other dogs.

🐶 Valentina – 6 years - Mix
She’s been a sweet and gentle dog since arriving as a stray. She loves to relax and hang.