Welcome to the 137 new Banner readers. 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 Woman Who Saved Drake Park

Last week, Paige and I took the kids down to Drake Park. It was one of those 60-degree spring days where the trees are just starting to bloom and the light hits Mirror Pond in a way that makes you stop walking for a second. The kids ran a bit ahead. We slowed down. That's the thing about Drake Park. Whether you've got two toddlers burning energy or you just need ten quiet minutes away from your inbox, that stretch of river has a way of resetting you.

It's one of the best places in Bend. And almost nobody knows how close we came to never having it.

Back in the early 1920s, the land along the east bank of the Deschutes wasn't a park. It was a plot. Developers had already drawn up plans to subdivide it into homesites. Nice homes, probably. But homes.

A woman named May Arnold had other ideas.

Arnold was the founder of Bend's Women's Civic Improvement League, and when she heard about the subdivision plans, she went to work. She and the league went door to door and gathered 1,500 signatures from Bend residents who wanted the riverfront preserved as public space. They put a bond measure on the ballot. It passed by a good margin. The city purchased the land for $21,000.

Drake Park opened in 1921.

Drake Park over the years

The park was eventually named after Alexander Drake, the Minnesota capitalist who arrived in Bend in 1900, platted the original townsite, and built the hydroelectric dam that created Mirror Pond. He deserves the credit. But the park exists because May Arnold and a group of determined women decided that a river in the middle of town belonged to everyone.

That felt worth knowing the next time you're sitting on the grass watching your kids chase geese.

Today, Drake Park stretches nearly half a mile along Mirror Pond, right in the heart of downtown. It has hosted the Pole Pedal Paddle finish line, the 4th of July celebration, Munch and Music, and about a million impromptu Tuesday afternoons. The ponderosa pines that line the banks were already there when May Arnold was collecting signatures. They're still there now.

If you haven't been down lately, this week is a good excuse. Spring in Drake Park is Bend at its best.

Last Chance

This is it. Orders close tomorrow.

We've been blown away by the response to the Spring Quarterly, and we mean that.

If your name isn't on the list yet, here's where things stand: once we close orders today, that's it for spring. We're heading into fulfillment, and there's no adding to the pile after that.

Order by tomorrow and you're in.

Order Spring Quarterly

Thanks for being the kind of people who still get excited about something showing up in their mailbox. It means a lot.

This Week’s Conditions
☀️ Sunrise: 6:00 am
🌅 Sunset: 8:05 pm
High Temp: 73°F
Mt. Bachelor: 0” base depth
Local Shop of the Week: Bend Tea + Art Lounge
Local Artist of the Week: Megan Leedom

Awesome shots of the smoke that settled in the past few days.

🐾Bend’s Best Good Boys & Good Girls 🐾

🐶 Little – 9 years, Husky
Little is a friendly, social stray who can’t wait to be part of a new family. She loves to run and will need a family with lots of outdoor exercise to take her in.

🐱 Ruger – 1 year - Siberian Husky/Mix
This 1-year-old is an energetic pup who loves to play and is known to be good around cats.

🐶 Brownie - 1 year- Mix
This gentle soul was previously in a house with children and is very calm. He can’t wait to find his forever home.