New Forum & News Updates

[Shutter]

Looking over the crown funding sites it appears his public has let him down. I see a lot of self promotion involved, and I'm not sure people are interested in giving money to a guy who threatened to blow up a plane full of people? I seem to recall some locals didn't like the event. it's on You Tube somewhere, perhaps it's Blevins own video, I don't remember.

The place does have history, but was this surrounding Dona only? tough shoes to fill indeed. I hope they do get it up and running, but they need to take the iron curtain down that now seems to be in fabrication. his whole hate promotion is hurting him IMHO. the video is long, dull, and boring. he apparently doesn't know how to use movie software, or he holds up signs to look low budget. he just isn't the type to be doing the video....naturally, I will be marked (again) as a hater, but this forum discusses things that some will not like, but hardly means it's hatred.....

Looking over his site, all I see is deleted accounts. "run forest, run" nobody seems to stick around. where is Mikej?  oh yeah, that was Robert it's pretty bad when you fabricate members....account, now deleted....1000thingy must be doing a thousand other thingy's 

[MarkBennett]

I don't know when the "DB Cooper Days" started, but the postface to the "Ha Ha Ha" book is a letter from the previous owners of the Ariel Tavern inviting everyone to the annual festival.  I think it's dated 1983.  It might have started before that, since they used the book to publicize it.

To me, it doesn't matter if that location has any tie to the hijacking or not.  It's a place to have an annual event on DB Cooper and it's a good time.  Whether there is any historical significance, other than being near the suspected landing spot is neither here nor there to me.  It's kind of like the "Baseball Hall of Fame" in Cooperstown, NY.  It's now widely accepted that Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball and it didn't start there, but that doesn't mean it's not a great place to visit.

[Shutter]

Dona claims as early as 1974. I do believe history is there. no, it doesn't have to be tied to the crime. the atmosphere sets the motion.

$37,500 is the goal to reach. that's a whole lot of money to ask for to restore an old house. I think Georger was right by saying it's a local thing, but is it worth that amount? I guess it would be to the locals.

[georger]

Dona claims as early as 1974. I do believe history is there. no, it doesn't have to be tied to the crime. the atmosphere sets the motion.

$37,500 is the goal to reach. that's a whole lot of money to ask for to restore an old house. I think Georger was right by saying it's a local thing, but is it worth that amount? I guess it would be to the locals.

Yee shall know a thing by its fruits.

 

[Bruce A. Smith]

Here's what I know of the Ariel Store and DB Cooper days.

I kind of heard that the "store" was built in the 1920s and was a general store for the area as it was being logged. Ariel proper must have been downhill a bit by the Lewis River, towards the land that got swallowed up when the Merwin Dam was put in during the 1940s, I think.

When the soldiers came into the area in March 1972 to look for DBC, they camped out in the flat lands on the north side of the dam, a rather bucolic setting that is now a spacious park, replete with fire pits, picnic tables and the like.

The soldiers used the store as a watering hole during the 18 days they searched in March, and then again in April 1972. Feds were mixed in with them. The owner of the store/tavern was Jermaine Tricolor, and he started the shin-dig in 1974, I believe. Dona bought the store from Tricolor in 1980-something, and had been living there since that time, I believe.

The DB Cooper connection is real, and has been a strong force in and around the Ariel Store since the skyjacking. At present, there are no other stores any where near the Ariel Store, and it is on a road that is only a spur to the dam that runs from the main highway road. About a dozen homes are located on the road, all situated between the store and the highway, which is a two-lane black-top affair.

West of the Ariel Store are rolling farmlands, stretching to Woodland, WA, about ten miles away. East of the store, the land changes abruptly and is quite rugged and wooded. To get to Amboy from Ariel, even though they are only a stone's throw apart from each other, technically, across the Lewis River, it actually takes about 40 minutes of driving eastwards, and then circling south and southwest to Amboy, or heading back towards Woodland for about seven miles, crossing the Lewis River, and then driving into the Amboy area, which is quite beautiful.

Meyer and I had a delightful tour of the Amboy scenery since we were directed to four different homesites by folks claiming they knew exactly where the Amboy chute was found. None of those spots was close to any of the others. But now I know where Green Mountain, Buncombe Hollow Rd and Cedar Creek Rd are, with the latter two roadways featured by Tom MacDougall and Jake in their accounts of the ground search and transporter episodes.

One aspect of Ariel that is not mentioned much is the figure of Dona. She was clearly a central person to the DB Cooper story, but I found her accounts of the skyjacking and the unfolding of events in the investigation that followed to be surprisingly unreliable. I was disappointed to realize that she was unable to be a substantive witness to the DB Cooper saga, other than contributing her own colorful personality. Regardless, she hosted the best party I have attended in years. I loved hanging out in Ariel for Cooper Days. But Dona's directions to the Amboy chute proved to be utterly fruitless.

[Shutter]

Construction began in 1929 (Merwin Dam)

I believe the Ariel Store was born in 1929.

[MarkBennett]

I was at the event in 2014, and I believe Dona said it was her 24th one of these.  That would put her back to about 1991 (if no years were skipped) -- right in line with Bruce's comment.

[georger]

Here's what I know of the Ariel Store and DB Cooper days.

I kind of heard that the "store" was built in the 1920s and was a general store for the area as it was being logged. Ariel proper must have been downhill a bit by the Lewis River, towards the land that got swallowed up when the Merwin Dam was put in during the 1940s, I think.

When the soldiers came into the area in March 1972 to look for DBC, they camped out in the flat lands on the north side of the dam, a rather bucolic setting that is now a spacious park, replete with fire pits, picnic tables and the like.

The soldiers used the store as a watering hole during the 18 days they searched in March, and then again in April 1972. Feds were mixed in with them. The owner of the store/tavern was Jermaine Tricolor, and he started the shin-dig in 1974, I believe. Dona bought the store from Tricolor in 1980-something, and had been living there since that time, I believe.

The DB Cooper connection is real, and has been a strong force in and around the Ariel Store since the skyjacking. At present, there are no other stores any where near the Ariel Store, and it is on a road that is only a spur to the dam that runs from the main highway road. About a dozen homes are located on the road, all situated between the store and the highway, which is a two-lane black-top affair.

West of the Ariel Store are rolling farmlands, stretching to Woodland, WA, about ten miles away. East of the store, the land changes abruptly and is quite rugged and wooded. To get to Amboy from Ariel, even though they are only a stone's throw apart from each other, technically, across the Lewis River, it actually takes about 40 minutes of driving eastwards, and then circling south and southwest to Amboy, or heading back towards Woodland for about seven miles, crossing the Lewis River, and then driving into the Amboy area, which is quite beautiful.

Meyer and I had a delightful tour of the Amboy scenery since we were directed to four different homesites by folks claiming they knew exactly where the Amboy chute was found. None of those spots was close to any of the others. But now I know where Green Mountain, Buncombe Hollow Rd and Cedar Creek Rd are, with the latter two roadways featured by Tom MacDougall and Jake in their accounts of the ground search and transporter episodes.

One aspect of Ariel that is not mentioned much is the figure of Dona. She was clearly a central person to the DB Cooper story, but I found her accounts of the skyjacking and the unfolding of events in the investigation that followed to be surprisingly unreliable. I was disappointed to realize that she was unable to be a substantive witness to the DB Cooper saga, other than contributing her own colorful personality. Regardless, she hosted the best party I have attended in years. I loved hanging out in Ariel for Cooper Days. But Dona's directions to the Amboy chute proved to be utterly fruitless.

The initial DB Cooper Days Festival was started in 1974, by the then-owner of the Ariel Store, Jermaine Tricolor. Dona continued that tradition in a robust fashion after she purchased the store in 1990.

One wonders how Tricolor's version of the night's events (weather) contrasts with Dona's. It was Tricolor who was there during the search, not Dona. Dona basically inherited everything from Tricolor. Bryan and Blevins now inheriting it from Dona! Are Tricolor's mementos and any memoir still there at the store?

Is Tricolor still alive? 

Dona was at her home in Amboy the night of the hijacking, not at Ariel:

Dona says that the rains that night were so severe that she couldn’t see across the street at her then-home in Amboy, Washington. She also challenges the official reports that DB Cooper’s airplane was flying at 10,000 feet and above the rain. “I heard the plane fly overhead, and it was loud!” she told the Mountain News in 2011. “It must have been about 3-4,000 feet at the most.”

[377]

“I heard the plane fly overhead, and it was loud!” she told the Mountain News in 2011. “It must have been about 3-4,000 feet at the most.”

Subjective acoustic range finding. About as accurate as a wild guess.

377

[Bruce A. Smith]

That's my Dona!

[Bruce A. Smith]

“I heard the plane fly overhead, and it was loud!” she told the Mountain News in 2011. “It must have been about 3-4,000 feet at the most.”

Cooper Trivia: I was sitting between Blevs and Meyer when Dona made this comment.

[Shutter]

Cooper Trivia: I was sitting between Blevs and Meyer when Dona made this comment.

She states the same in a video on You Tube....


Looks like we will be around another year  I just renewed the domain for another action packed year 

[georger]

“I heard the plane fly overhead, and it was loud!” she told the Mountain News in 2011. “It must have been about 3-4,000 feet at the most.”

Subjective acoustic range finding. About as accurate as a wild guess.

377

and the rest of the story (published early at DZ after some research) is Amboy was/is in the high complaint zone  for aircraft noise complaints. Why? I dont know except the issue was acknowledged by officials in Washington including the FAA - there were studies ordered. So ... the question for Dona is: which loud plane did you hear at Amboy, among hundreds that month? There is documentation on the internet or I would never have known about this. 
 

[georger]

Cooper Trivia: I was sitting between Blevs and Meyer when Dona made this comment.

She states the same in a video on You Tube....


Looks like we will be around another year  I just renewed the domain for another action packed year 

The person I would have liked to have talked to was the person who was there! Jermaine Tricolor!

Any family of his still around that could be interviewed? 

Oh! And thanks Dave. You are a gem!

[Bruce A. Smith]

Cooper Trivia: I was sitting between Blevs and Meyer when Dona made this comment.

She states the same in a video on You Tube....


Looks like we will be around another year  I just renewed the domain for another action packed year 

Yup, Blevs was filming.