Echo 9/12/25

When I look at the football schedules to look for likely places to watch a game, I may not know where all of them are, but I've at least heard of them. I've been around for a while, so how could there be a town in Oregon big enough to have a high school that I've never heard of? That's what led to The Bucket's appearance in the little town of Echo on a Friday afternoon. I didn't know why the place was being kept such a big secret, but we were going to get to the bottom of it.

Echo isn't even off the beaten path. In fact, it's literally right on the most beaten path in the country. It owes its very existence to that beaten path, and just outside of town you can see where that path was beaten by thousands of wagon wheels a long time ago. It's just a mile or so south of an interstate freeway in Umatilla County, and not anywhere near nowhere, much less in the middle of it. So, it's remarkable they've been able to keep their town such a secret for so long.

A Mr. J.H. Koontz platted the town in 1880, but the first white settlers came rolling through in the 1840's. When the place still had a native American name, this was the place the Oregon Trail crossed the Umatilla River. By the 1860's some of the emigrants started settling in the area, and by 1880 there were enough of them for Koontz to plan his town. Of course, this new place would need a name, so he named it after his three-year-old daughter, Echo. He must have really loved her, even though she repeated everything that was said to her over and over. I hope she didn't really do that. It would be annoying.

Even all these years later, there are still fewer than a thousand residents in the town, but the old bank building has been converted to a museum which we were hoping to see. Unfortunately, it was closed while we were there, so we did the next best thing. Echo offers a free guided walking tour that you can listen to while you wander around downtown, and we took advantage of it to learn all about the town of Echo.

During the Oregon Trail days, many emigrants would stop for a few days to rest their animals, do a little trading, and enjoy the spot beside the river before heading off into the dusty desert section of the trail to the west. This camping spot is now a city park with an Oregon Trail exhibit and is also where our tour began. I wondered if my own ancestors had stopped there for a night or two or if they would have been the kind to just drive on across the river and keep moving. I also imagined pulling up next to them in the morning with a big school bus and saying "Hop in, everyone. I can have you in Oregon City by lunchtime". They would have been amazed. Then I imagined my own relatives from 2200 approaching me at that same place and saying "Hop into our pod with us. We can have you on the other side of the galaxy in a matter of moments". We waited a few minutes for them to show up with their pod, but it never happened, so we continued on our walk to complete the tour.

We saw J.H. Koontz' mercantile building downtown, and we saw Echo's (the girl, not the town) old house. We saw that bank building, spent some time in a beautiful little park, and saw where Echo's (the town, not the girl) old railway station had been. Sadly, we learned that Echo (the girl) died at a young age (31) after getting ahold of a bad batch of alcohol. That's her, though, on the town's logo today, and as fin de siecle women go, she didn't look half bad. The tour is well worth it, and not just because it's free.

By 1883 the railroad ran through Echo, making the place a major shipping point for wool, cattle and sheep in the early 1900's, and it was incorporated in 1904. About ten years later, greatness came to Echo in the form of a young man riding the rails looking for work. He stayed in Echo for a while digging irrigation ditches and doing other odd jobs around town, and after he became famous the young man, Jack Dempsey, even came back to Echo. Dempsey held the world heavyweight boxing title from 1919-1926, and in 1924 he came back see old friends and stage an exhibition match in Echo.

During our tour we had walked by the H&P Cafe and made a mental note to stop in when the tour was over. We did just that, and didn't regret the choice. It's not the only restaurant in town, but it's the only one we saw that looks like Echo Koontz would probably still recognize it from her ramblings around town over a hundred years ago. It hasn't changed much, except the food is better and the alcohol won't kill you.

With gametime approaching, we headed south a few blocks to check out the high school. It's a modern- looking place with a tidy appearance. The grass on the lawn was a brilliant green, and everything just looked orderly and well-manicured. Across the street to the north we found a spot for The Bucket in the small gravel strip just outside of Charlie Berry Stadium. The name is a little misleading: It's just a football/baseball field with a few sets of small wooden bleachers on steel frames, with a couple of shipping containers stacked up to make a press box behind them. The football field uses the baseball field's outfield, and it's a beautiful place to watch a game.

West side (home) seating

As we approached, we saw the grounds crew putting the finishing touches on the natural grass field. That crew consisted of a single little robot, rolling across the grass to dispense paint on the proper spots for the hash marks and yardage lines. It had even spelled out COUGARS in big block letters in each end zone. I assume you can just program it once and tell it what you want it to do, and then... Voila! You're out of a job! I'm sure that's not true, and it was fun to watch the little green robot go about its work. It's a sight I expect we'll see a lot more of for the schools that still have natural turf.

East side visitors' seating with an arboretum behind

While the robot finished its job, we took a few minutes to check out the adjacent Oregon Trail Arboretum just to the east. It looks like it could use a little TLC these days, and there were some interesting-looking trees that weren't identified and some uninteresting-looking bare spots on the ground that were labelled as trees I would like to have been able to see, but it's all just waiting for someone with some spare time and energy to spruce it up a bit, if you'll excuse the pun.

The game was a bargain at $5 a head, and we had arrived early enough to snag a couple of seats on the wooden bleachers. It had been a hot day, with temperatures in the 80's, and the warmth and blue skies continued as the players took the field. The Echo Cougars won their lone state championship in 2023 in the 6-man division and have since moved up to play 8-man football. They compete in 1A Special District 3 along with other schools from the northeast corner of the state. They were, and are, coached by a man named Tom Van Nice, proving once and for all that Van Nice guys don't always finish last. They went 7-4 last year and came into this game with a 1-1 record. To finally settle the age-old question about who would win a fight between a Cougar and a Panther, they were hosting the Panthers from Prairie City/Burnt River, who were winless after their first two games.

The Echo fans seemed to be aware of the seating situation, and many had brought their own chairs to sit in, with lots of others content to stand around the edge of the field to watch the action. Both teams struggled offensively at the start of the game, with the defenses dominating in a scoreless first quarter. Echo had no passing game at all, while the Panthers had just enough of one to keep them in the game after the Cougars got on the scoreboard first. Echo led 8-6 at halftime, and it would not have surprised me if that had ended up being the final score, but I really wanted to see the Cougars score again because they had the same light show with their field lights that we'd seen for the first time last week. I knew word would spread fast, but now I wonder if all schools already have their lights hooked up to celebrate.

While the coaches tried to inspire their troops during the break, I took the opportunity to visit the concession stand at the north end of the field. The FFA had set up a fund-raiser grilling hamburgers and hot dogs just inside the entry table, but the H&P Cafe had made sure I didn't need anything that substantial for my mid-game snack. As it was, I settled for some sour gummy worms and a bottle of pop, though where sour gummy worms are concerned, you can't really say you "settled", can you? I made my way slowly back to my seat, taking time to watch the elementary-aged kids taking part in the punt, pass, and kick competition on the field. It appeared to be a lot less organized than I had expected, but they all had smiles on their faces, and they were running around on the field instead of under my feet, so I'm calling it a resounding success for whoever came up with that idea for the halftime entertainment.

There was no pep band for the game, but Echo does have a cheerleading squad that made frequent appearances right in front of us all night. There wasn't much room for them to maneuver, so they had to hide out between the sets of bleachers when they weren't performing a cheer, but they were well-organized and made it all work. There was even a Cougar mascot named The Cougar wandering around in a cougar suit, high-fiving little kids and giving a thumbs up at appropriate moments. Not that anyone needed a lot of encouragement to cheer on the Cougar players. When they came back out their defense resumed its dominance, and when the offense was able to score again, it looked like Echo just might have their second win of the season.

The Cougars had failed on their second two-point conversion, though, so the score was 14-6 heading into the final quarter, and the Panthers were just one big play away from sending the game to overtime. Things got even more dramatic as the Panthers put together a long drive in the closing minutes and were threating to score with just over a minute remaining. That's when an Echo defender intercepted a pass and ran it back 80 yards for a touchdown, finally sealing the win for the home team.

Though there had been no band, the school fight song was played over the PA system as people headed for the exit, and it made the night extra special when I heard the by-now familiar tune of my old high school song being sung by the residents of Echo. That was a very thoughtful touch. But their secret is out now on the vast CPHC communication network, so I hope they don't mind.