The History of the Hood River Crag Rat Banquet
The men who were later called Crag Rats knew each other mostly from American Legion Post #22 and assignments to Company 12 of the Oregon National Guard Coast Artillery unit. This Hood River Legion Post organized the first group climb of Mt Hood’s Cooper Spur route in 1921 and Legion members, as well as hiking and camping friends, attend this climb. A little later, the Hood River Guides were formed with roughly the same group. The guides were popular with tourists and even marched in the Portland Rose Festival parade, further cementing their community connection. The Guide’s Ski Club was a stem of this group. Ski crazy, Finnish orchardists and many others got caught up in the winter fun. This club would later morph into the North Slope Ski Club which sponsored ski jumping, slalom races, baseball on skis against the fire department and much more at Cooper Spur Ski Area.
The Hood River Guides had responded to searches on Mt. Hood’s north side, when called upon, but the search for Blanchar Baldwin was really the turning point. The need for a committed search and rescue group was probably most imperative in the mind of Mace Baldwin who was Blanchar’s father and a member of the Hood River Guides. Blanchar, who was nine years old at the time, was separated from a group including Jess Puddy, while fishing on the Middle Fork of the Hood River. He became lost and spent the night out. His parents feared that he had drowned. A group of searchers from Parkdale were rounded-up and he was eventually found the next day. It was a happy ending but the search and rescue reinforced concerns in the minds of Puddy and Baldwin.
Three years later, on a summer night in 1926, Andy Anderson, manager of Tum-a-Lum Lumber Company invited around twenty young men, mostly members of the Hood River Guides, to his house. They talked about establishing an organization for the primary purpose of search and rescue. Although, according to Crag Rat legend, the most memorable thing about the meeting was that Delia Anderson, Andy’s wife, jokingly suggested that if they did form an organization they should call it the Crag Rats. She said “they were a bunch of rats for leaving their families every weekend to climb around on local crags”.
It was about ten days after that meeting, Mrs. Strong, a lady from Portland, brought her three boys up to Government Camp. She pitched tents and planned to spend a few days. Her two older sons took off fishing. The youngest boy, Jackie, was seven years old and decided to explore the forest around their camp. When dinnertime arrived, Jackie didn’t show up and they couldn’t find him nearby. Mrs. Strong contacted the local authorities and a search began for Jackie Strong. Andy Anderson and a group of men from Hood River gathered for the Jackie Strong search. Being mountaineers, they searched higher on the mountain than most. There were about 250 searchers by the third day looking for Jackie. Mace Baldwin, Percy Bucklin and Jess Puddy eventually found Jackie sitting by a log eating huckleberries and in good health. When the rescuers brought Jackie down to Government Camp, newspaper reporters descended on them and asked questions. Whether planned or not , we’ll never know, but they said they were Crag Rats from Hood River. The rescue and the Crag Rat name apparently caught fire with the national press and before the day was over most of the newspapers around the country were telling the story of a mountain rescue group in Oregon known as the Crag Rats. But, there was a hitch…there wasn’t a formal organization yet! Andy Anderson and the group got together within a month and drew-up bylaws. Formalization made the Crag Rats the first mountain rescue group west of the Mississippi River.
New Year’s Day 1927. A group of teenage boys from Portland went to Government Camp and climbed with skis and snowshoes up Little Zig Zag canyon. It was snowing hard and Calvin White, a boy of sixteen, was a better uphill skier than the others and soon out-distanced them. When the main group retreated back to Govy, they were surprised to find that Calvin wasn’t there. He was lightly clad and had no provisions. An immediate search was organized. After three days of searching, Bill Cochran found Calvin White huddled next to a big rock in the canyon. He was hypothermic and near death. Bill alerted the others, with yells and gunshots. More Crag Rats arrived and fashioned a ski sled and skied Calvin to the Battle Axe Inn in Govy. Calvin White lived but lost a few toes to frost bite.
The following year, on January 3rd, 1928 Dr. White, who was Calvin’s father, and Calvin came to Hood River and invited all the Crag Rats to be banquet guests of honor at the Mt. Hood Hotel. Dr White continued to host this banquet for many years. Eventually they changed the location to Portland and the Crag Rats drove down old highway 30 to the University Club. The tradition was established and the Crag Rats continued to have the banquet the first week in January each year.
After 1934, the banquet was held at the original Crag Rat hut, which was located above the on ramp at I-84 and Cascade Ave. The winter banquet was so socially important that one fierce winter all the roads in Hood River were snowed-in but the Crag Rats didn’t cancel the banquet and members skied in, enjoyed the usual festivities, spent the night and skied home the next day. For many years the banquet was a potluck stag party and wives prepared the food and did the dishes. In 1938, the December minutes show there was a heated discussion regarding inviting wives to the banquet. It was decided that since the wives were preparing the meal, it would only be courteous to invite them to sit down and eat. The banquet was catered from that year forward. It took an almost glacial timeline to finally include women as Crag Rat members and now we continue as a inclusive organization that bases membership on merit and a willingness to “keep doing this stuff”.
Following World War II, the Crag Rat organization took on many new members and outgrew the old hut’s capacity. The banquet was moved to the Rockford Grange Hall where it was held for several years and eventually out to the Pine Grove Grange before the first banquet was held at the newly built Crag Rat Hut in Pine Grove in January of 1967. One year the membership got a little bit soft and postponed the banquet, when the roads were snowed-in, until the first week of April. But older members protested and the banquet was moved back to January, snow and ice be damned.
A world-wide pandemic forced a move to outdoor venues and the Cloud Cap porch was used in the summer of 2020 and the porch of the hut utilized in the summer of 2021. During 2022 and 2023 the banquet was moved to the Hood River Best Western, to accommodate our larger group size. This years is the 96th Hood River Crag Rat banquet and we look forward to many more.
