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.

A Secret Inside The Old Post Office

I used to walk past this building on Wall and Franklin all the time and think it was one of the cooler looking office buildings downtown. Turns out I wasn't wrong to notice it. That's the old Chamber of Commerce building, and before that, it was Bend's federal post office. As of this February, it's a hotel called The Westman, and it's got a secret built right into the walls.

Tucked inside the old Post Office was a tiny room called the catwalk, just four feet tall, built with peepholes so postal inspectors could quietly watch workers below and make sure nobody was skimming stamps or slacking off. A little Big Brother energy in 1933, decades before anyone had a word for it. Imagine a very nosy government employee, hunched in a closet-sized room, watching someone sort your grandparents' mail.

The building itself has been standing since 1933, terra cotta exterior, granite steps, and Central Oregon geology baked right into the concrete since it used fossilized diatomaceous earth hauled in from near Lower Bridge. Bend asked Washington for a real post office back in 1917. It took 14 years, a World War, and 121 pages of specifications to actually get one built.

The post office ran there until 1978, when it outgrew the space and moved to 4th Street. The building made the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, then spent about two decades as Chamber of Commerce offices, the building I used to admire from the sidewalk without knowing any of this. This year, it got a full renovation and became The Westman, named after Minnie Westman, Oregon's first female postal carrier.

There's something about an old post office getting a second life that just works. Next time you're downtown, stop into Minnie's, the hotel's bar. Order a drink and think about the room, the size of a closet that used to watch over everyone below.

The Deschutes Lost and Found

Someone just pulled a peavey out of the sand near the Hayden Homes Amphitheater. If you don't follow LootTheDeschutes yet, you should. They're the unofficial lost and found of the Deschutes River, digging up and cleaning up everything the river and its banks have swallowed over the years.

Whoever dropped this one probably wasn't thinking about the future. They set it down, walked off, and the sand did the rest. Sixty to a hundred years later, @lootthedeschutes pulled it back out, a rusted little time capsule from when the Old Mill District was actually a mill.

This Week’s Conditions
☀️ Sunrise: 5:35 am
🌅 Sunset: 8:46 pm
High Temp: 90°F
Local Farm of the Week: Tumalo Lavender

🐾Bend’s Best Good Boys & Good Girls 🐾

🐶 Walter – 4 years, German Shepherd Mix
Walter is a smart and silly dude who will fall in love with you. Clever and smart, Walter is picking up training quickly.

🐱 Mishka – 2 Years - Mix
Mishka is settling in slow and steady. She's a little fearful right now, but she's already housetrained and used to living with cats and horses. Give her patience, and she'll give you her trust.

🐱 Vlad – 2 years - Siberian Husky
Vlad showed up as a stray with all the husky trademarks: cool, independent, happiest outside. He's smart and made for an active household that can keep up with him.