2016 La Pine Frontier Days

From 2016 La Pine Frontier Days Website:

2016 La Pine Frontier Days
Jul 1-4, 2016

La Pine Frontier Days has been around a loooong time in some form or anotherwith the format you enjoy today being instituted around 1998 with the formation of the La Pine Frontier Days Association. Back in the olden days it wasnt always a yearly event, but on the occasional 4th of July, someone would suggest a community wide get together to celebrate Independence Day, and a critter of some kind was presented for roasting and the crowd would arrive with side dishes and beverages. One year Ray Morehouse, aka Trapper Sam, brought a bear for the roasting pit. That is the tradition we honor with our current day Western Style Pit BBQnow in its 10th year, and also now a tradition at the Frontier Days celebration. In 1976 Oren Robinson, then owner of the Highlander Motel, RV Park & Gas station, coordinated a Bi-Centennial celebration for the community. In 1986, Carol & Bob Shotwell started the yearly tradition of the Last Frontier Days. They brought in a few vendors and a street dance and then later started to bring entertainment from out of the area. I love to tell people of the year the dancers from the Fiji islands put La Pine on their tour of the Pacific Northwest. They just about froze their leis off as the temperature dropped into the 40s for their nighttime performance. In those days the celebration included a classic car show and the very first Newberry Explosion chili cook-off. (Re-instituted in 2007 by the Frontier Days Association as part of their Octoberfest).