>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Sometimes it doesn't take a fairy tale to make a happy ending. For proof of that, look at recent news out of Wallowa County — the state's purchase of the Marr Ranch property adjacent to the Old Chief Joseph gravesite at the foot of Wallowa Lake.

The Oregon Parks Department and Oregon State Parks Trust, aided by donations from Confederated Tribes of the Colville and Umatilla Indian Reservations and the Nez Perce tribe, have bought the property from K&B Limited Family Partnership for $4.1

million.

The sale brings to an end some of the most bitter land use in-fighting in the state's history. Even better, just about everybody walks away from the struggle a winner.

The tribes themselves no longer need to worry about bulldozers rolling over sacred ground where they say their ancestors lived and died. The fear of ancient graves being raked up, paved over, lost forever to progress and prosperity, is gone.

K&B, headed by Steve Krieger, was the rightful owner of the property but was stymied every time it tried to do something with it. Legal actions and public protests followed like a plague.

Now, having given up ideas of private development, the family partnership gets a fair price for the ground.

Sympathetic Wallowa Countians, believing with the Indians that the land is sacred and an integral part of the county's character, are unburdened, along with all the other antagonists, of endless bureaucratic wrangling at the city, county and state levels.

Finished is the acrimonious legal and administrative battle that made enemies of neighbors and seemed to go on without end. What can be better than that?

Other winners? The thousands of visitors from all over the world who pass through Wallowa County each year.

The 60-acre Marr Ranch, plus the Old Chief Joseph gravesite and cemetery, will be managed by state parks and, perhaps, the national parks system. All will have the right to share in the history and tradition the land represents.

For everybody, the news is good, the ending happy. It's hard to imagine anybody unhappy with the agreement.

On second thought, there could be someone. Real estate developers who would have profited from subdivision and construction might feel cheated. But there are other places to go, other lands to be developed. Such people always find a way to turn a dollar.

The fight over the Marr Ranch property was a classic — one waged with toes to that fine line separating private property rights from the need for historical preservation. Both sides had their points. And in the end, everybody involved came away with something of value.

Too bad more stories we read in the newspapers don't end up like that.