I’d previously written about Stan Terry, the Multnomah County pinball king of the 1950s and 1960s, whose bid to be elected mayor of Portland was tossed out because he lived in Lake Oswego. Mr. Terry was a character in many other ways; a Mausoleum Club member recalls fondly that when Lake Oswego wouldn’t let Mr. Terry use one of his properties as he wished, he obtained a flock of sheep, dyed them red, white, and blue, and grazed them on the property more or less in downtown Lake Oswego.
When city hall asked him to remove the sheep, who were doing what sheep are known for doing (think of methane here), Mr. Terry cheerfully replied that the red, white, and blue sheep were his way of showing his affection for our country, and no puisne city government was going to halt his patriotic display.
He and the city came to some agreement, and the sheep returned to greener pastures, presumably bleached. It’s a shame that he didn’t run, at least once, to be mayor of Lake Oswego.
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That’s a cool story! I can just picture that happening in “Lake Oswego’s” downtown…how funny would that be? How long ago was that?
I don’t know exactly, but from what I know of Stan Terry’s career, I would place it in the early 1960s at the latest. Lake Oswego was still fairly rural in the 1960s. As late as 1969, Lake Oswego had only two or three traffic lights: one at State Street and A Avenue (the center of town), one farther south on A Avenue, and maybe one on Boones Ferry Road. The traffic light at Boones Ferry and Country Club came early, but I think I recall it being a four-way stop in the late 60s. I could picture it happening on Mr. Terry’s house property, which was if I recall rightly east of Highway 43 on Stampher Road, just a few blocks north of downtown and across from where Terwilliger Boulevard ends.
why did not he coloured all the sheeps in rose? he might have elected as a mayor of Portland…giggle