Eccentric Tales of Boring Oregon by Bruce Haney

Author:Bruce Haney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Adix was born in Louisiana but moved to Oregon when he was eight years old. Before moving to Gresham, he spent many years in Estacada, where he practiced medicine and was even mayor for a time. Courtesy of Gresham Historical Society.

This led to a couple of questions: Was it an accident? And who was responsible?

At this point, the stories of Earl Jones started to get around. How he had stolen his father’s car a few months back. How they had argued about Earl not being able to go to that basketball game. For a lot of people, this made sense as motivation, and Earl became the main and only suspect.

While the rest of his surviving family was in the hospital, Earl was taken to jail. He was questioned by Sheriff Ernest Mass. Ernest was about sixty at the time. He had become sheriff for the second time a couple of years before after a ten-year gap after losing to Sheriff Wilson in 1915. The first time Mass ran for sheriff in 1911, he put wanted posters for himself around town that read: “Wanted! Reward! E.T. MASS FOR SHERIFF. Age 44, Height 6ft., Weight 240lbs. Reward-Efficiency, Competency and Honesty.”

Earl, like many young men who have been arrested, said a lot of dumb things that only made him look like more of a suspect, and all of this was released to the papers.

When Sheriff Mass asked Earl about his birth mother, he told the sheriff that she died at his birth. Then Earl added that four of her sisters had been in the asylum. This led to headlines like “Earl Jones Says Asylum Houses 4 Aunts” and “Suspect in Blast Hints at Insanity.” Earl’s brother Richard was questioned about Earl’s sanity. He said that he had never noticed any unusual behavior.

Earl also asked the sheriff if he could collect the insurance money. This seemed suspect to many people and pointed to premeditation.

Earl was asked about the problems with his father and how his father would not let him out at nights and they fought about him not being able to go to the basketball game the week before. Earl confirmed this all to be true.

Eventually, Earl admitted that he had purchased the dynamite and placed it under the house. But he denied many times the accusation that he was the one to set it off. One time, after being asked if he set it off, he replied with the snotty “I don’t remember setting it off, Sheriff. If I do, I’ll let you know.”

At this point, Earl did not have an attorney. He had no one to guide him, not even his family, because those who survived were all at the hospital. If he was guilty, then you tend to think, Yeah, do not get him an attorney yet. Let him keep talking. He will hang himself. But if he was not guilty, there was an explanation for the way he was talking. This was a young man who did not know any better.

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