History of Oregon Newspapers/Linn County
LINN
Albany.—The Oregon Democrat, predecessor if not ancestor of the State Rights Democrat which in time developed into a part of the present Democrat-Herald, was the first newspaper in Albany, the first in Linn county, and one of the earliest in Oregon. It was established November 18, 1859, by Delazon Smith, one of Oregon's first two United States senators, and his brother-in-law, Jesse M. Shepherd. Smith continued as editor until his death, November 18, 1860, using it largely to make war on the so-called Salem clique of Salem politicians, in which his senatorial colleague, J. W. Nesmith, and his journalistic colleague, Asahel Bush, both were "charter members."
The Democrat gave its late editor one of the longest and most laudatory obituary editorials ever given an Oregon editor. It was written by Rev. Thomas H. Pearne, of the Pacific Christian Advocate, a political opponent but personal friend, and the newspaper's column rules were turned upside down to give the proper effect of mourning.
Shepherd continued publication until February, 1861, when he sold to W. G. Haley and his brother-in-law, A. L. Stinson. Haley, the editor, was a son of Judge S. D. Haley, prominent early Albany jurist.
The paper was still appearing as the Oregon Democrat, January 28, 1862, with the serial number volume 3, number 14 (which checks with the November 1859 start by Smith & Shepherd.) The name at the masthead of this issue, however, is W. G. Haley, proprietor. Soon afterward Pat Malone appeared on the scene and the paper, sup pressed, resumed under the name Albany Inquirer, with Pat as editor. Malone was well known as a strong southern sympathizer, and it was not long until he too was in trouble with the government for pro-secession utterances. His paper was excluded from the mails April 30, 1862, by General George Wright, in charge of the federal army in the Northwest.
Malone, in fact, was doubly unfortunate in his expressions of opposition to the war. He was editing the Corvallis Weekly Union, successor of the old Occidental Messenger and the Democratic Crisis, when it was suppressed in 1863 for the same sort of thing. Publication was resumed during the summer.
The Inquirer appears to have kept its name after the suppression. Haley & Stinson are at the helm of Volume 1, No. 10 (September 27, 1862), a copy of which is in the files of the Oregon Historical Society.
The name Inquirer was soon dropped, however, and Haley & Stinson were back in the field with the Oregon Democrat, of which volume 1, number 2, is on file in the Historical Society, under date of June 20, 1863.
Finally the Democrat and the Inquirer had disappeared from the scene, with their various woes and suppressions, and were succeeded in 1865 by something brand-new, the State Rights Democrat. This is the paper which is regarded by the publishers of the present Democrat-Herald as the actual ancestor of their paper. The confused history of the older papers is not claimed as any part of their own family tree, which begins with the first issue of the State Rights Democrat August 1, 1865. James O'Meara was back as editor, remaining one year.
In July, 1866, the paper was taken over by M. H. Abbott, Mart V. Brown, and John Travers. Travers retired from the firm in the following December.
Meanwhile the Albany Journal, a weekly catering to the Republican sentiment in Oregon, had been established March 12, 1863, by the Albany Publishing Company, of which T. Monteith, J. H. Foster, A. Hanson, H. M. Brown, and H. N. George were directors. William McPherson was editor in 1866, when, having been elected state printer, he moved to Salem. The paper was allowed to die. It was revived in 1867 by Pickett & Co. but died in the following March, when the company went bankrupt.
The Register, Republican in politics, was established in Albany by Coll Van Cleve, editor and publisher, with the plant of the defunct Journal, in September of the same year (1868). This paper continued under the same management for many years, ran as a daily in 1875, and was still on the scene when, in 1879, Will G. Steel started the Albany Herald.
It disappeared when Van Cleve went to Yaquina to run the Post in the middle 80's, attracted by railroad development at Yaquina bay.
In May 1869 Abbott of the State Rights Democrat went to Baker and established the Bedrock Democrat. His partner in the Baker venture was L. L. McArthur, a recent arrival from Virginia, who had been a colonel in the Confederate army.
C. B. Bellinger, a lawyer residing at Monroe, whose relatively brief excursion into journalism was far overshadowed by a long and distinguished career as lawyer, compiler of codes, professor of law, and jurist, purchased a half interest in the State Rights Democrat in 1869. His partner was Mart V. Brown. Mr. Bellinger retired from the firm July 12, 1870, removing to East Portland, where he re-entered the practice of law. He had already edited the Arena, a Democratic weekly, at Salem, and later edited and published the Salem Review. Soon after going to Portland he founded and for two years edited the Portland News, which in 1877 was succeeded by the Portland Telegram. The law, however, was his career, and on the death of United States Circuit Judge Matthew P. Deady in 1893 he succeeded to that position, which he held until his death twelve years later.
On Bellinger's retirement Mart V. Brown conducted the Democrat along until 1874, when he was elected state printer and left the paper, selling a half interest to his brother-in-law, Claiborne H. Stewart, who had been employed in the office for about seven years. The paper ran as an evening daily for a time, beginning in December 1875. Mr. Brown died in 1881, and Mr. Stewart brought into the firm with a half interest George E. Chamberlain, rising Albany lawyer, later to be governor and United States senator. Chamberlain bought into the paper June 23, 1882, and Stewart, who had been elected county clerk, sold his interest to T. J. Stites. Chamberlain in turn became too busy to look after the paper and sold his interest to Fred P. Nutting, who remained with the paper as part owner and later editor and publisher from December 22, 1882, to 1912. Mr. Stites remained for 12 years.
Soon after taking hold, Mr. Nutting had the State Rights part of the title removed and called the paper the Albany Weekly Democrat.
Mr. Nutting, who was to have a long and memorable history in Oregon journalism, had had little experience. He had learned the printing trade in New York state and had been admitted to the bar in Rochester, N. Y. "To make a newspaper prosper," he wrote in the Democrat-Herald 43 years later,[1] "it was necessary in a place as small as Albany, with low prices, to get down and push the plow. And I pushed the best I knew how. I did the local work and helped in the mechanical department, particularly a while before press time, as well after starting the daily as before. . . . My proclivity seemed to be condensation. Most of us are cranky about some thing, and it seemed to be my part to boil things down, and get as many things to boil down as I could find, and to do it on time.
"While I was on the paper, I always had a special column of short paragraphs, wise and otherwise. For a while it was called The Man About Town, and then one day I changed it to "Misfits," which seemed to offer a wide range, from gossip to philosophy, and very few issues ever appeared without this column, or part of a column."
One of Mr. Nutting's best news items, albeit condensed in his own good fashion, was the following, which appeared September 7, 1883:
Married—On Thursday evening, Sept. 6, 1883, at the residence of L. E. Blain, by S. G. Irvine, D.D., Mr. Fred P. Nutting and Miss Olive Miller—both of Albany. We congratulate ourselves.
The Democrat started daily, under Mr. Nutting's regime, May 7, 1888, and it has never missed a regular issue since. The opposition Herald, then published by Train & Whitney, had started a daily edition a little while before.
Four sirters—Lily Rideout, on the paper for 25 years; and her three sisters, Mrs. Omer Hendrickson, Mrs. Grant Froman, and Mrs. Mae Dumond,—were among the best-known compositors in the years of Mr. Nutting's regime. One of the early carriers was Willard L. Marks, now chairman of the State Board of Higher Education.
In 1912 Mr. Nutting sold the paper to W. H. Hornibrook, a former state senator in Idaho, having been connected with the paper for 34 years, 30 as publisher. Mr. Hornibrook, one of three Oregon newspaper men to obtain the position of minister to Siam, was publisher of the paper until January 1, 1919, when he sold it to Ralph R. Cronise, his city editor, and William L. Jackson, Albany business man, who continue as publishers.
William Gladstone Steel, Oregon newspaper man who virtually put Crater Lake on the map as a scenic resort and became a leading authority on Oregon geography and on American place-names, came into the Albany picture in 1879 with a strong purpose in mind but no money in pocket. His aim was to start a newspaper in Albany, notwithstanding the two already published there, the Register and the Democrat. Mr. Steel told the story interestingly back in 1923 in an interview with Freda Goodrich.[2]
Mr. Steel bolstered his credit by offering Van Cleve $1500 cash for his paper. The publisher held for $2,000— which, in Steel's opinion, was too much."I did not even have enough money to pay the freight from Portland on the machinery which had been lent to me without charge," he said. "I only knew that I wanted to start the publication of a newspaper at Albany. I went to Sam Robinson, Portland representative of the American Type Founders' Company, who, fortunately, was a friend of mine, and told him what I wanted. He offered me $250 worth of machinery and equipment if I would pay the freight on it. I could not even do that, so I sought aid from Ed Hirsch, then state treasurer."Ed," I said, "I want to start a paper in Albany, and I haven't any money. Can you lend me some?"
"How much do you want?"
"I told him that $25 would do, and he gasped. But he gave me the $25, and I paid the freight on the machinery."
"I didn't have 15 cents to offer," said Mr. Steel, "but I knew that the fact that I had made him an offer would circulate quickly throughout the community and prepare the way for my coming."
When he had paid the drayage costs on his machinery, the new publisher was absolutely broke. By adroit use of credit, however, he managed to get the paper going. The first number of the Albany Herald came out October 3, 1879. The new paper provided a 19th century believe-it-or-not when it carried Linn county for the Republicans in the 1880 elections. Mr. Steel left in the next June, without a great deal more than he had brought in, but the paper, left in the hands of partners, was established, and it ran, through various ownerships, until E. M. Reagan, publisher since 1913, sold it to the Democrat publishers, who consolidated the two as the Democrat-Herald, in 1925. Mr. Reagan, now living in Eugene, became interested in oil development in the Southwest.
James Pottinger, who died at his home in Victoria, B. C., in 1932, became publisher of the Herald in 1881. He stayed but a short time in Oregon but also worked for a time on the Oregonian.
His partner on the Herald was Orville T. Porter, formerly of the Harrisburg Nucleus. In 1883 the publishers were Porter & Jones. The next year a combination was made with the Disseminator, moved from Harrisburg, under the title Herald-Desseminator, and a weekly paper was issued Fridays.
In 1884 the semi-weekly Bulletin was started, and Mr. Porter became its editor. He was credited by Editor Nutting of the Democrat[3] with being a "versatile writer, with a very extensive vocabulary." In 1886 the Bulletin became a morning paper, daily except Sunday, continuing the semi-weekly. The next year it had disappeared.
The Herald was established in 1885 by Train (S. C.) & Whitney (J. R.), new publishers, as a morning daily, (except Sunday), Republican in politics. This four-page paper, 18×22, reported a circulation of 750. Mr. Train was at one time Albany postmaster, and Mr. Whitney state printer.
Besides those already mentioned, other owners of the Herald have been C. G. Rawlings, George Westgate, C. C. Page and E. M. Reagan. At the time of the consolidation the Democrat was running as a morning paper, and the Herald was issued in the evening. The Herald had moved from the morning field in 1908. Thomas D. Potwin was editor of the consolidated paper until 1933, when he went to the Oregonian.
One of the distinctive features of the Albany Democrat and, later, of the Democrat-Herald for several years was the Sunday (later Saturday) edition started by Charles Alexander for Jackson and Cronise in November, 1920. This edition was largely devoted to the cultivation of literary talent in the Albany district, and it supplied an outlet for the early production of a good many promising writers. Alexander himself built up a nationwide reputation as a writer of fiction, short and long, as well as feature articles.
When the paper was merged with the Herald as the Democrat-Herald in 1925, Alexander's section was moved to the Saturday issue. The last issue of this special literary section of the Saturday paper appeared June 6, 1931, in the depression period.
The Herald's career covered an even half-century.
The Albany Sunday Telescope was set up in 1891 by C. W. Watts publisher. The paper was four pages 13×18 inches. The circulation was reported at 850. The Telescope was soon dismounted.
The middle nineties, characterized by a flood of Populist and free-silver papers throughout the West, saw several started in Albany. The Populist, a Wednesday weekly, ran from 1893 through the 1896 campaign. The publisher was anonymously listed as the Populist Publishing Co. The People's Press, a Socialist organ, was issued Fridays by A. D. Hale editor and publisher from 1893 to 1903. A sworn circulation of 1500 was advertised.
The Oregon Silver Imprint, established in 1896 as a Wednesday weekly by Finch & Campbell, was edited the next year by J. A. Finch alone, and the next year, its last, by Johnston S. Smith. Another publication launched by Finch, the Bell, failed to last, and Finch moved to Portland. There he became a lawyer. His career ended in Salem, where he was dropped through a trap for shooting to death a fellow-member of the bar.
Another short-lived paper was the Argus, published and run for a short time in 1906 by Paul B. Johnston. Still another that failed to make the grade was the Albany Citizen, published in 1910 by Ethen N. Kibbey editor and Paul S. Ware business manager. It lasted only a few months.[4]
Trade and class publications appeared and disappeared through the years. Among these were the Oregon Good Templar, started in 1871, M. C. George editor; the Oregon Granger, 1875, A. S. Mercer editor; Oregon Cultivator, agricultural organ, edited from 1873 to 1876 by N. W. Garretson.
The Western Stamp Collector, a twice-a-week journal of nationwide circulation, established in Mill City, Marion county, in 1932 as a successor to the Mill City Logue, a struggling weekly almost dead from the depression, was moved to Albany in August 1935, leaving Mill City without a publication. The town had, as a matter of fact, been without a local newspaper for three years, since the Stamp Collector succeeded the Mill City Logue.
Mr. and Mrs. Al Van Dahl, both of them linotypers on the Salem Capital Journal, had purchased the Logue in December 1930, just in time to run into the stretch of hard times which followed the panic in 1929. Mr. Van Dahl had been a co-publisher of the Baker Herald at the time of its consolidation with the Democrat, and he longed to get back into the publishing field. When the meagre field threatened a loss of the firm's working capital, Mr. and Mrs. Van Dahl gradually turned an old hobby of his into account by incorporating a philatelic section in his local paper. Before long this feature had overshadowed everything else in the paper, and the Mill City Logue and Western Stamp Collector was changed to the Western Stamp Collector, with the local news gradually giving place to the philatelic matter. The paper was made a twice-a-week in November 1934. The circulation, starting at a few hundred, climbed to 15,000 after the national scope was attained.
Mr. Van Dahl devotes his time to the extensive correspondence and the editing, while Mrs. Van Dahl handles the circulation. At the time of the move the staff had grown to include a linotype operator, job man, pressman and assistant pressman as well as the two publishers, Al and Arlene Van Dahl. A new press, folder, another job press, and more magazines for the linotype were installed when the move to Albany was made.
Harrisburg.—The centennial year of 1876 saw the birth of journalism in Harrisburg, when O. T. Porter started the Nucleus, a four-page Saturday weekly, Republican, 22×32, for which he charged $2.50 a year.
Like a good many other newspapers of the period, the Nucleus had a mission and frankly proclaimed it. In Pettengill's newspaper directory for 1878 the publisher, announcing a circulation of 400, and proclaiming that "it will soon . . . possibly treble its circulation," declared that "portions of Linn, Lane, and Benton counties are destined, at no distant day, to be separated and form a new county, with Harrisburg as the county seat. The Nucleus will be THE newspaper of Nucleus county. . . . Circulation in six incorporated villages." In Ayer's for the same year Porter asserted that the Nucleus "circulates as the local journal of Brownsville, Halsey, Junction, and Harrisburg, none of which has a smaller population than 300, all incorporated."
The ambitious dreams of Mr. Porter failed to save his little paper. Brownsville and Junction proceeded at once to establish their own papers, and within three years the Nucleus was not.
Then came the Disseminator. Started in Harrisburg by S. S. Train in 1882, it ran for two years when it was combined with the Albany Herald and moved to Albany.
In 1891 came the Courier, a Friday weekly organ of the Farmers' Alliance, with J. B. Morin, editor and publisher. The paper ran three years.
Next in the procession was the Linn County Review, established in 1893 as a Friday weekly. Le Masters (C. G.) & Cartwright (J. F.) were editors and the Review Publishing Co. (probably a group of local business men) publishers. The paper ran for four years, conducted by Cartwright in its last year.
The Bulletin was started as an independent, issued Thursdays, by A. P. Bettersworth Jr. as editor and publisher, in August 1901. It was an eight-page five-column paper and sold for $1.50 a year. Six years later Ira A. Phelps, who had been publisher of the Santiam News at Scio in 1899, took charge. The next publisher, M. D. Morgan, was to remain for 17 years. He later became publisher of the Siuslaw Oar at Florence. His successor was the veteran Sloan P. Shutt, who was nearing the end of his journalistic trail. In 1927 Guy Hughes, who for several years had published the Halfway Herald, took hold and remained for seven years, being succeeded by Hugh D. Mars, formerly of Jefferson, when overtaken by ill health. Mr. Hughes died in August 1938.
Brownsville.—George A. Dyson, newspaper pioneer, started the first paper ever published in Brownsville. This was the Brownsville Advertiser, which appeared in 1878, too late, apparently, to get a notice in Pettengill's newspaper directory of that year. It had disappeared before the data for Ayer's newspaper annual for 1881 were made up. Old-timers have little or no information about it.
Dr. John B. Horner, who later was for many years professor of history at Oregon State College, and George Blakely of Brownsville promoted the next paper, the Brownsville Banner, and H. Stine, founder of so many Oregon newspapers, started the Informant. All these were in the eighties, but information on them is vague.
To Homer Davenport, of Silverton, who was to become a world-famous cartoonist, goes the honor of suggesting to his friend Albert B. Cavender the idea of starting the Times, the newspaper which has come on down to the present. Cavender was working, at the time, on the new Woodburn Independent, just started by L. H. McMahan. Cavender came to Brownsville and, with A. S. McDonald, issued the first number of the Times in June 1889. McDonald was editor, and Cavender attended to the business and mechanical ends. There was a chuckle in the line carried across the first page, right under the title: "Devoted to the Interests of Brownsville and Vicinity, and the Editors' Pocket-Books." The pocket-books, incidentally, seem to have been fairly well filled out, since the paper, independent politically, ran up a circulation of 700 at $2 within a year, and a copy of No. 7 in volume 2 carried 13 columns of advertising out of 28 (the paper was a seven-column quarto).
George A. Dyson, who had started the first paper, carried a 2½-inch single-column ad on the first page for his hardware store, where he also did "repairing at short notice." The biggest ad in the paper, a three-column full-length display, was carried by O. P. Coshow & Co., of the Brownsville Real Estate Agency. The paper was all printed in Brownsville, in contrast with many of its contemporaries, whose papers were half "patent," printed by the old Palmer & Rey plant (later American Type Founders Company) at Portland.
Another of the ads was for the Oregonian Railway Co., C. N. Scott, receiver, which was running from Portland to Woodburn, Silverton, Brownsville, and Coburg on the "east side," and Dundee, Sheridan, Dallas, Monmouth, and Airlie on the west side of the river. An item in the news columns indicated that the woolen mills were using 300,000 pounds of wool a year.
Cavender, who attended to the press work, commented that the old Washington hand-press on which the Times was printed at that time, was "a wonderful machine for physical exercise."
Cavender became the sole owner of the paper in 1892. W. A. Calder, a school-teacher, had purchased McDonald's interests the previous year.
F. M. Brown bought an interest in the plant in 1894 and in 1906 purchased Cavender's interest and conducted the newspaper for many years. Other editors have been D. H. Talmadge, C. V. Averill, and Milo E. Taylor.
William H. Wheeler, who wound up a long career in journalism publisher of the Halsey Enterprise, was lessee and editor of the Brownsville Times from 1919 to 1921.
Mr. Talmadge became more widely known as an editorial-page columnist on the Oregonian for several years. He is recognized as one of the leading literary craftsmen in Oregon journalism.
Lebanon.—Lebanon's first paper, which has survived all competition for half a century, was named for a railroad train which has not survived—the Lebanon Express on the old Oregonian railway. The paper was started by J. H. Stine, founder of a good many Oregon newspapers, who had just come from Polk county, and its first issue came off the press March 5, 1887. Kirkpatrick (H. Y.) & Bugler were the publishers of the paper the next year.
Two years later George L. Alexander and Jack Adams started the Lebanon Advance, a People's party weekly, issued on Fridays. Both of these men had done newspaper work in Eugene. Mr. Alexander is the son of J. B. Alexander, one of the real pioneers of Oregon journalism, who had started Eugene's first paper, the News, in November 1856, and had also founded the Eugene Guard in 1867. Adams & Alexander continued the Advance for several years.
Finally, in 1897, the paper was combined with the Express, which had been conducted by H. Y. Kirkpatrick, under the title Express-Advance. Mr. Alexander was associated with Mr. Kirkpatrick in its publication and remained on the paper, which he edited for many years, until his retirement in 1936. In 1899 the paper was issued as a semi-weekly.
Meanwhile the Criterion, a competing weekly, issued Tuesdays, was established (1898) by W. M. Brown. The next year it was published Wednesdays. A. B. Hoag was at the helm 1901 to 1904, when Mr. Brown resumed control, running a Republican newspaper. D. C. Humphrey took it over in 1905. Taking hold in 1908 was N. M. Newport, who changed publication day to Thursday.
For one year, 1912, the competition was three-cornered, with a weekly called the Tribune in the field. It failed to last out the year. The Criterion, the same year, under W. T. Fogle, changed its name for a year to the Linn County Advocate, then went back to its old name. The name Criterion was re-established by W. C. DePew, formerly of the Amity Standard, who conducted the paper for ten years, finally selling to A. L. Bostwick, who sold the paper to the Express in 1924 and returned to daily newspaper work. He is now on the Oregonian news staff.
The Express had dropped the Advance part of its name in 1912. The circulation battle between the Express and the Criterion was close for several years, the Express finally achieving a good lead (1250 to 869) in 1924. The Express was conducted by G. L. Alexander and H. E. Browne in 1913. By 1915 Mr. Alexander alone conducted the paper. T. R. MacMillan came to the Express in 1920 and remained throughout Mr. Alexander's stay on the paper as his partner. H. W. Fredericks and R. M. Hayden purchased the paper in 1936.
Halsey.—Halsey's newspapers go back to 1889, when Morris & Phelps (Ira A.) started the News as a Saturday weekly. C. Gray (1891) was the next publisher of the News. In 1893 the mast-head carried the firm name Gray & Cross. The paper was styled "independent" in Ayer's for 1895. It was missing from the directories for 1898.
There follows a hiatus in Halsey journalism until 1912, though there is vague gossip to the effect that for a short time the Halsey barber ran a paper as a side line, adding clipping to his shearing and shaving.
D. F. Dean, founder of other Oregon papers, established in 1912 the newspaper which, with occasional short skips because of sketchy support, continued to the recent present.
Information regarding the early life of the Enterprise is scarce. William H. Wheeler, veteran printer-publisher, a later owner of the paper, found the office serving largely as a warehouse for stacks and stacks of old newspapers[5] in which the Enterprise was much mixed with other newspapers from all over the state. They had not been regularly filed, so rather than bother with unscrambling the mass he "let the entire lot go up in smoke." Much of the information gained of the early days of the Enterprise has been gleaned from files in the library of the University of Oregon.
After two years Dean sold the paper to William A. Priaulx, an other veteran, who has conducted newspapers in several other Oregon towns. In 1916 Mr. Priaulx brought in D. H. Talmadge as editor. May 16, 1918, Mr. Talmadge became owner as well as editor. He ran a bright and newsy six-column all-home-print newspaper. In July of the next year Mr. Talmadge sold out to Charles F. Ballard of Portland, who cut the size to five columns. In June 1921 Mr. Ballard sold to D. F. Dean, the founder. This veteran, in the meantime, however, had crippled his hands in logging camp work and in two months he sold to William H. Wheeler, already mentioned. Wheeler, 75 years old, had just completed a lease on the Brownsville Times. He was assisted in his work by his 74-year-old wife, who did the newsgathering and the bookkeeping. Together they raised the size of the paper back to six columns, and ran six pages, one-third of which was plate matter. They also raised the advertising rates from 12½ cents to 20 cents an inch and the subscription price to $2 ($1.50 to those who paid in advance).
Wheeler changed the name of the paper in 1925 to the Rural Enterprise and made it eight pages. In the meantime his first wife had died and No. 2 assisted him in making the Rural Enterprise more of a farm-community paper. He sold in 1927 to H. F. and A. A. Lake, who changed the name back to the Halsey Enterprise and in 1929 combined it with the Greater Oregon of Albany and moved it to the county seat. The field has since been re-occupied by the Halsey Journal, launched in 1932 by C. V. Averill & Son, formerly of Brownsville (now, 1939, known as the Halsey Review).
Scio.—Scio's first newspaper, the weekly News, could not boast even a Washington hand-press when it was born as the first newspaper in Linn county outside of Albany. The founder was Dr. H. H. King, and the first copy came off the old jobber February 3, 1870. The paper lasted less than a year, "folding up" January 11, 1871.
The little paper had begun to be a drain on the publisher's resources, he explained in his valedictory. "Besides being an expense, it detracts from other business," he said. "To our patrons who, notwithstanding the diminutiveness of our paper, have given us their support," he concluded, "we return our hearty thanks. And to those, though few indeed, who are yet in arrears, we ask you very kindly to remit the amount to us immediately; our financial affairs are very precarious just now."
Coll Van Cleve, founder of several early newspapers, founded the Scio Press in 1889. It was a Populist paper, four pages 18x24. Van Cleve charged his subscribers $2 a year and claimed a list of 600. The paper was sold within a year to T. L. Dugger, who published it for seven years.
The next paper, the Santiam News, was founded by Albert Cole and Roy Hill in 1897. Ira A. Phelps was publisher in 1899, D. C. Humphrey in 1904, and T. L. Dugger in 1909.
The present Scio Tribune is the result of the consolidation of the Sweet Home Tribune, which was brought to Scio in 1914 by T. L. Dugger, and the News, which was still running at Scio. The News was sold to the Tribune in that year.
Sweet Home.—The Sweet Home New Era, successor of several newspaper ventures in this field, was started in September 1929 by G. H. Crusen as a 6-column 4-page paper, for which the subscriber was charged $1.50 a year. The town is small, but the paper has been lively and well made up. It was here that the late Mrs. O. Feigum, wide-eyed country correspondent, always interested and often astonished, did her picturesque work—this lover of nature and chronicler of the first robins, trilliums, etc., who was made famous by Ben Hur Lampman and Ed Miller of the Oregonian through editorial recognition and special interviews. Mrs. Feigum told Sunday Editor Miller that she got her tips by listening in on the rural party lines.
The present publisher of the New Era is John T. Russell, whose big fight now is to keep his town from being drowned out of existence by one of the proposed great dams of the Willamette valley project.
Notes
[edit]- ↑ 60th anniversary number, August, 1925.
- ↑ Oregon Exchanges for October, 1923.
- ↑ In an article in the 60th anniversary number of the Albany Democrat-Herald, November, 1925.
- ↑ Fred P. Nutting in 60th anniversary number of the Albany Democrat-Herald, November, 1925.
- ↑ C. Genevieve Morgan, paper written for U. of O. journalism class, 1927.