History of Oregon Newspapers/Yamhill County
YAMHILL
McMinnville.—Lafayette, Oregon, is not such a wide break in the green of the Oregon landscape in these days of 1939. But Lafayette has a proud history—a lot more of it than can even be hinted at here—and one of its many claims to distinction is, that it was the birthplace of the ancestors of both the present McMinnville newspapers. For Lafayette was the elder brother (sister, if you please) of the present county seat of Yamhill county—and thereby hang a good many tales.
Yamhill county journalism had its inception in January 1866 with the launching of the Lafayette Courier (100). The pioneer publisher was J. H. Upton, one of the most ubiquitous of all the tribe of early Oregon's wandering journalists. The first issue of the Courier appeared on the first day of the year as a five-column four-page paper. Upton, as usual, soon moved on, and the paper, Democratic in politics, went to Jasper W. Johnson, who moved the paper to McMinnville. He sold the plant to W. A. McPherson, one of Oregon's early state printers. He changed the name to the Pacific Blade, whose appearance was noted by the Salem Statesman of October 14, 1869. McPherson changed the paper's politics to Republican.
When the Blade got into financial trouble and suspended, T. B. Handley purchased the plant (in 1870) and used it to publish a paper called the West Side. The next year an interest in the paper was sold to George W. Snyder and Billy Boone, practical printers from Salem. The paper, a six-column folio, claimed a circulation of about 650 at $2.50 a year. In 1872 Boone, later a reporter in Portland, and Handley retired, leaving George Snyder in sole charge of the paper.
It was George Snyder who gave the name Yamhill County Reporter to this publication, which through the years had been, successively, the Courier, the Blade, and the West Side. He was joined the same year (1872) by his brother, A. V. R. Snyder, like himself a practical printer, from Illinois. In reports to Ayer's directories, the Reporter's founding date is given as 1870, indicating that the early publishers were inclined to regard the West Side, and not the Courier or the Blade, as the real ancestor of the Reporter. Snyder Bros. developed the paper, and by 1882, when the partnership was dissolved, it had been built up to eight pages, selling at $2.50 a year. First one Snyder (George) and then the other (A. V. R.) took a turn as publisher.
Chronology brings us now to the origins of the present Telephone Register. This, as already indicated, goes back to little Lafayette, which was still the Yamhill county seat. In August 1881 W. M. Townsend and S. R. Frazier (Townsend & Frazier) founded the Oregon Register at Lafayette. Within two years Frazier had left the firm (he was later a city editor of the Oregonian and founder of the Seattle Press, the direct forerunner of the present Seattle Times) and Townsend carried on alone for two years.
Of the new Oregon Register the East Oregonian of Pendleton said, August 19:
We have received the initial number of the Oregon Register, published at Lafayette by Messrs. Townsend and Frazier. We cannot speak very highly of its typographical appearance, but that can be improved. The senior member of the firm is the Hon. William Townsend, who made such a telling speech in Pendleton during the campaign last fall, and we predict he will make a success of it. It will be Democratic in politics.
Then the Westerfield Brothers (A. B. and W. I.) took hold for two years, succeeded in 1888 by Frank S. Harding, when they went to Lafayette to found the Yamhill County Ledger, started in 1889. So we leave Mr. Harding in charge of the Register while we go back and pick up the Telephone.
But there's another little paper that intervenes—the Daily Campaign.
McMinnville, apparently, always has been a good newspaper town. How many can recall, however, that it had two dailies in 1886, more than 50 years ago? Not at the same time, but in the same year.
Col. J. C. Cooper, always an active citizen, had a most enjoyable little excursion into journalism in 1886. It was in the midst of the Cleveland administration, and Cooper thought the Republicans needed a bit of printed stimulation if they were to get anywhere that year. So he started the Daily Campaign. And a breezy little publication it was. It was a four-page, five-column paper, with ready-printed (Palmer & Rey) inside, with the McMinnville news and political gossip on pages 1 and 4. Announcing that the purpose was to support the Republican party, the opening editorial said, in the last paragraph: "Hence the mission of the Daily Campaign is to urge every Republican in this county and state to do his duty at the polls." "Every Republican and everybody else in the county," the Campaign proclaimed, "should subscribe for the Campaign one week at least. . . . Mr. A. V. R. Snyder, the jolliest rustler and the best local editor in the Willamette valley, employed to rustle for the Daily Campaign. Give him your hand, your items, and your subscription. The Campaign is not started in opposition to any other paper, especially the Reporter, from whose hands we have received many kind favors. This county needs the Reporter, and we want it to thrive. In the meantime we shall scamper through this campaign, ask for a little business, boom our county, elect the entire Republican ticket, and quit."
And the Campaign did just about that. The paper was good-humored throughout. Incidentally, this live-and-let-live spirit was usually evident in Yamhill county journalism, one exception being a certain bitterness, such as usually accompanies such things, between Lafayette and McMinnville during the county seat fight about this time. And even that was not long-lived.
So the Campaign ran just 57 issues, carrying two or three columns of short local matter every day in addition to the advertising and the political editorial. So on June 11, with election successfully over, Mr. Cooper (with Mr. Snyder) patted the Campaign on the back for the "most complete Republican victory in the county in 16 years," lamented the election of Sylvester Pennoyer, Democrat, as governor, and smilingly gave up the ghost.
Commenting on its short but successful career, the Salem Statesman said:
The Daily Campaign laughed itself to death over the result of the election, and a semi-weekly paper (101) has risen up out of its ruins.
Now we can pick up the Telephone.
The departure of the little Daily Campaign seemed to leave a hole in Yamhill journalism almost instantly filled by the Twice-a-Week West Side Telephone of McMinnville, which made its appearance Tuesday, June 15, 1886.
The publishers were Talmadge & Turner, who asked $2 a year for the 104 issues of a four-page six-column paper. Of this paper, only the two outside pages were printed in McMinnville, the rest coming from Palmer & Rey's ready-print shop at Portland, with the inside open for McMinnville news, editorials, and miscellany.
The salutatory was unusually modest. Under the heading "Our Howdy," the publishers said, in part:
At the head of page 3 (the local page) is a notice of having engaged A. V. R. Snyder (103) to take charge of the news and editorial departments.To our mind the average newspaper salutatory is a platitude most unbearable, composed of glowing promises. . . . Yamhill county has two excellent newspapers. (102). That much is cheerfully conceded, to the credit of all concerned. And our observation leads us to believe that there is room for another journal as nearly as good as the present ones as it is possible to make it.
The paper was neat-appearing. The front page was clear of advertising and only 5¼ of the 24 columns in the paper were given up to advertising. The ads provide interesting samples of the things commonly advertised in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and part of the nineties—St. Jacob's Oil, Royal Baking Powder, Nervine, Mexican Mustang Liniment, an opium cure, a cure for constipation, a cure for consumption—the word cure, of course, employed by this writer with plenty of mental reservation-also a cure for "lost manhood and two Palmer & Rey ads telling publishers, present or prospective, of two seven-column used hand-presses for sale.
Now comes the second daily of McMinnville's big year 1886. D. C. Ireland, formerly of Mishawaka, St. Paul, Jackson (Mich.), Portland, Oregon City, Astoria, and many other way-points, was editing the Yamhill Reporter. It was small, a three-column, four-page affair, but, like all of Ireland's papers, neat-appearing. He charged 10 cents a week by carrier for this offshoot of the larger weekly, and the carrier was young Leonard Ireland. Advertising patronage was generous; and it is of interest that the three advertisements on the first page were for educational institutions—one for the "Oregon State University at Eugene," signed by Prof. John Straub, secretary of the faculty; another for McMinnville College (now Linfield), E. C. Anderson president; and the third for the McMinnville Business College. Two livery-stable ads tended to keep the Daily Reporter's atmosphere from seeming too rarefied.
The first issue appeared September 1, 1886. The issue of the 16th contained one full page (three 10-inch columns) of locals. Ireland was the news-reporting type of editor. The paper was enlarged to four columns October 1, and the readers were asked to take either the daily or the weekly, rather than both. "McMinnville," said Ireland, "will never again be without its own daily paper. . . . We paid for the privilege of coming to this little city to reside and do business, and we propose to stay, and pay our way as we go along." But the daily did not stay long, and neither did Mr. Ireland.
The little daily ran a long feature "Pioneers of '42-'43" serially during 1886. Its first issue was folded in as a supplement to the weekly, and the announcement was made that regular separate publication would begin Monday, September 6. There were 16 local items in the first issue, four and a half columns of "straight reading-matter," the rest advertising. The single sport item reported that "In the free-for-all match next week Melton is entered. He is a noble old horse; and although 18 years of age, still has the same style about him."
The New Year's issue of the daily (January 1, 1887) was an eight-page special booster edition, with a 13-section head over the big writeup. McMinnville, incorporated in 1876, it was related, had a population in 1886 of 1100, and the county's population was 10,000. The big booster writeup ended with the phrase "Oregon Forever. Old Yamhill against the world!"
The origin of this phrase is perhaps not generally known to Oregon people. William O. Powell, Yamhill county commissioner, explained it to this writer recently. The phrase, he said, is properly "Yamhill (not "old Yamhill") against the World." No antagonism is intended. Mr. Powell's uncle, W. S. Powell, was in charge of the Yamhill county exhibit of wheat at the Philadelphia Centennial exposition in 1876. On the exhibit when prepared for shipment he had stenciled the phrase "Yamhill against the world." The wheat exhibit won first prize at the exposition—and the phrase became a tradition.
E. L. E. White, Ireland's partner, used to publish a bit of his own verse in the paper occasionally. A note in the special edition gave the population of Lafayette at 600 and observed that the "interests of the place are well looked after by the Register, a weekly paper published by Westerfield Brothers." Newberg's population was given at 150.
White became the sole proprietor the next year and changed the paper to a semi-weekly. Graham Glass Jr. was the next owner (1888), and in 1890 F. H. Barnhart bought the paper and remained for nine years, selling in 1901 to D. I. Asbury, former Canyon City editor, who built up the paper both editorially and mechanically. The McMinnville News was established by O. G. Estes in 1901. It was a weekly paper, issued Wednesdays. Like the Reporter, it was Republican. Consolidation was natural with so many newspapers in the county, and in 1905 the News was merged with the Reporter under the present name, with Asbury of the Reporter and Estes of the News as publishers. C. C. Hammerly purchased the News-Reporter in 1908, enlarged it to eight pages and ran it for four years as a Thursday weekly.
Edgar Meresse, the present editor, came to the paper in 1911, when he and Reyn M. Rosensteel became owners. The News-Reporter Publishing Company was formed in 1931 to make over the newspaper and the printery of the Model Press; in this company Mr. Meresse, M. C. Brooks, and S. S. Dow are stockholders. The paper is now a six-column, eight-page paper.
H. L. Heath bought out H. F. Turner in May 1887. It was in this year that, after a bitter campaign, McMinnville succeeded in taking the county seat away from Lafayette, thereby virtually terminating Lafayette's importance as a newspaper field. Under Mr. Turner the Telephone had agitated the question of removal.
The issue of March 15 told of a Lafayette boycott of the Heath Dramatic Company for "hiring teams in McMinnville." The bitterness was not difficult to understand when the effect of the loss was paper considered. The Telephone of May 13 carried a story relating that former Lafayette man was coming back to sell his holdings, now that the county seat was lost. His property, half a block from the court-house, consisted of half a block of land improved with a two-story, ten-roomed house, large and commodious barn, fruit trees, etc., all for $375.
The issue of July 29, 1887, carried, under the heading "Dead—But Arisen in its Place a Live Democratic Paper," the announcement that the semi-weekly was suspended, to be replaced by the Weekly West Side Telephone. "The paper," the announcement said, "is Democratic from principle, and we ask the hearty support of the Democratic party of Yamhill county. Come and subscribe for the first issue of the weekly, only $1.50 a year.
". . . There are four papers in the county—the independent Herald (Dayton), the Republican Reporter, the Democratic Register, which has a strong tendency toward prohibition; last and greatest in the interest of the Democratic party is the Weekly Telephone."
Consolidation of the Telephone and the Register, both Democratic, under the name Telephone Register, was effected February 1, 1889, with F. S. Harding of the Register and H. L. Heath of the Telephone, editors and publishers. In 1894 Mr. Heath, who had been the editor with Mr. Harding in charge of the mechanical end, bought out his partner and remained until he went to the Philippine Islands in 1898 as captain of Company, Oregon National Guard. Mr. Heath remained in the Philippines after the war, made money in the hemp and flax business, became president of the Manila chamber of commerce. A few years ago he returned to Oregon and died in 1937.
Mr. Harding conducted the paper until 1903 (104), when George E. Martin, with William Hagerty as a partner, purchased it. A year of ownership by H. L. McCann was followed by the return of Mr. Martin to the paper. Mr. Martin as publisher hired D. I. Asbury, former owner, as editor, and in that capacity he served for several years. In 191 1 W. D. Williams, from Tennessee, purchased the paper, selling in 1913 to James A. Clarke. John G. Eckman edited the paper for Mr. Clarke, who was directing the Pacific Baptist at the time. The paper now drifted away from the Democratic party, becoming independent politically. A Tuesday-Friday semi-weekly was issued in 1912 and 1913 but was dropped for the weekly, and with occasional forays into the semi-weekly field the paper has remained a weekly ever since. After Mr. Clarke's death in 1920 his widow assumed control, keeping Mr. Eckman as editor.
Mrs. Clarke sold the paper February 1, 1921, to George E. Martin, Lynn C. Burch, and Irl S. McSherry, with Mr. Martin as business manager, in which position he had been serving much of the time since he first came to the paper in 1908; Mr. Burch as head of the mechanical department, in which branch of the paper he had been engaged for years, and Irl S. McSherry, young college graduate, as editor. The paper now continued its Republican drift by becoming "independent Republican," also enlarging to eight columns.
In 1925 Mr. McSherry sold his interest to Sheldon F. Sackett, and the paper came into the possession of Mr. Sackett and Harry B. Cartlidge. Mr. Sackett, a McMinnville boy, son of County Judge Sackett, was now making his first big plunge into journalism after having graduated from Willamette, done some school-teaching, and some newspaper work on the Eugene Register. The paper continued under the Sackett-Cartlidge direction until 1928, when Lars E. Bladine, Iowa newspaper man of long experience, purchased the paper. J. B. (Jack) Bladine came on ahead and conducted the paper until his father could wind up his Iowa interests. Mr. Bladine Sr. is owner and publisher, and Jack Bladine editor and manager.
The paper has had a full share of recognition, having won "best Oregon weekly" contests on a number of occasions. Its greatest recognition came in 1939, when it won the National Editorial Association contest and was rated the best country weekly in the United States. Lars Bladine, publisher, has acted as president of the Oregon Press Conference, as president of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, and as secretary of the Republican state central committee.
Lafayette.—The Courier and the Oregon Register, Lafayette's earliest newspapers, are discussed in connection with McMinnville, since they are the forebears of the present McMinnville papers. Now for the later days and the sunset of Lafayette journalism. With the Courier and the Register both gone from the town, A. R. Westerfield in 1889 launched the Yamhill County Ledger, a Friday Democratic weekly 24×35 inches (seven columns), for which he charged $2 a year. The town's population had shrunk to something like 500. In 1892 the publishing firm was Carpenter & Westerfield. By 1895 Thad H. Duprey was publishing the paper on Saturdays. It was dead in 1897.
In 1892 G. A. Graves tried the field with the Valley Times and was able to keep going until 1897.
Another paper, the Visitor, J. A. Hart editor and publisher, tried the shrinking field in 1914, but the local field was gone, and the enlarged McMinnville papers were too handy, and the Visitor found the welcomes too few and quit. Apparently this was all, journalistic ally, for Lafayette.
Dayton.—Dayton's first newspaper was the semi-monthly Free Press, started in 1881 by A. L. Saylor, editor and publisher. It faded out by 1885, and that year it was succeeded by the Herald, a Wednesday weekly independent in politics, edited and published by M. M. Bannister. With an occasional interruption the Herald ran through to 1909.
The Dayton Optimist, started in 1906, ran through to 1909, when it was suspended by L. B. Stone.
The Tribune has been running almost steadily since its establishment in 1912, since which time it has undergone several changes of ownership and at least one suspension. Fred T. Mellinger was publishing the Tribune in 1922 when a wider field beckoned at Tillamook, and he suspended the paper and went to the Tillamook Herald, where he has been ever since. In January 1925 A. N. Merrill revived the paper and continued it for more than a year. In 1927 the Oregon newspaper directory gave the name of J. F. Robertson as editor, owner, publisher, and manager. Next year John E. Black was listed as the owner, with J. E. Mellinger reporter. In 1929 C. W. Van Wormer, publisher of the Yamhill Record, was listed as publisher of the Tribune. He sold to E. B. Stolle June 1, 1931. Subsequent publishers have been C. M. Sutton, M. Byron Hughes, C. M. Sutton again, J. R. Todd, and Jessie M. Taylor and Milo E. Taylor, present publisher and editor.
Newberg.—The Graphic goes back to 1888, when Hiatt & Hobson started it as an independent four-page weekly newspaper, issued Saturdays, at a cost to subscribers of $2 a year. In 1890 the paper was published by Frank P. Baum. E. H. Woodward, who owned the Graphic longer than any other person, took hold in 1892 and published it until his death in 1920.
Mr. Woodward made the paper Republican, cut the price to $1.50, and reported 450 subscribers in 1903. Within ten years he had built this figure up to 950, holding it close to 1,000 until his death, when the paper was sold to W. J. Nottage and Chester A. Dimond. Nottage & Dimond continued the publication until Mr. Nottage sold his interests to King Cady in 1936.
In the middle 90's some opposition to the Graphic appeared. The Yamhill Independent, Orm C. Emery editor, was started in 1894 as an independent paper, issued Thursdays at $1.50 a year. It failed to last.
The Chehalem Valley Times appeared on the scene in 1891, published by Graves Brothers. G. A. Graves was editor. The paper was dead in three years. Of a later editor, unnamed, the Oregonian said, under date of December 4, 1893:
One of the most notable instances of self-control on record is that of the editor of the Chehalem Valley Times of Newberg, who recently served a short term in jail. He has the floor, but will say nothing about the committing magistrate.
Still another paper, the Newberg Independent, is mentioned in the Corvallis Gazette of July 23, 1897. There is no trace of it in any records seen by this writer.
Another opposition paper, the Enterprise, came into the field in 1902. This four-page paper, edited and published by G. A. Graves, continued under his direction until 19 10, when it was taken over by J. C. and M. T. Gregory. The next year the publisher was R M. Rounsteel, and for the next five years John T. Bell. Simon S. Dow was the last editor of the Enterprise, which was suspended in 1919.
John D. Burt, formerly of the Carlton Sentinel, and Don Woodman, formerly of the Yamhill Spokesman, established the Scribe in Newberg in 1931. Mr. Woodman withdrew from the publication in 1935 and is now (1939) on the Oregonian news staff. Mr. Burt later sold to Robert H. Harper and Paul D. Dent, present (1939) publishers. Both the Graphic and the Scribe are issued Thursdays.
Amity.—This town, McMinnville's small neighbor to the south, had three weekly newspapers in 1891, when journalism first came to the little town of 400. One of these was named the Popgun, and it ceased firing after a year or two. Editors and publishers were Long & Harvis. A second, also published on Friday, was the Oregon Blade, an "independent" publication edited and published by R. A. Harris. It lasted six years.
The most vigorous of the three was the Valley Times, a Thursday paper edited and published by G. A. Graves. It was independent in politics. In 1897 Mr. Graves was claiming 400 circulation at $1 a year. It was a four-page 15×22 "job." A later editor, noted in the newspaper directory of 1903, was Adolphus Rea. The town had declined to 292; the paper was still sticking to its 400 circulation claim. But the Times was dead in 1904.
Next came the Standard, which has come down through the years. The first issue, under the direction of W. C. DePew, later of Lebanon, came off the press April 8, 1910. The town had grown, and the paper now consisted of eight pages, for which the charge was $1.50 a year. Mr. DePew was Republican, and so was the Standard. C. G. LeMasters took the helm in 1912. H. J. Richter, present editor and publisher, took hold in 1917. The Standard had installed a Unitype in 1912, and Mr. Richter discarded this typesetting apparatus for regular use after it had set up the paper for 20 years.
Carlton.—The Carlton Herald, first newspaper in this Yamhill county town, was established in January 1901. After it perished, the Observer was launched by Herbert Graves in 1906, succeeded by the Sentinel, which, founded in March of that year by B. F. Munger, continued through under various owners until 193 1. Longest owner ship in the lifetime of the Sentinel was that of John D. Burt, who carried it on from 1923 to December 1931, when, with Don Wood man of the Yamhill Independent, he started the Weekly Scribe at Newberg. The paper was then suspended.
A second Herald was started in January 1929 by Dorland Kirk. A later editor, J. L. Hutchins, sold to John E. Black, formerly publisher of the Dayton Tribune, in January 1934. February 1, 1935, Gladys Sutton, wife of C. M. Sutton, editor of the Dayton Tribune, purchased the paper from James W. Gould, who succeeded Black. Mrs. Sutton is still conducting the Carlton paper.
GRANT
Canyon City.—The county seat of Grant county always has been a quaint old place with a lot of history, and the home of news papers of picturesque, distinctive quality. Changes of newspaper names and ownerships were frequent in the earlier years.
The first paper published in Grant county was issued in Canyon City in October, 1868, under the name City Journal, R. H. J. Comer editor and publisher. Comer took his equipment in from The Dalles by pack train. The animals probably were not overloaded; the equipment consisted of a job press and enough ad and body type to throw together a tiny paper.
The old City Journal was a three-column folio, 7¾ by 10¼ inches over all, with the then standard 13-em columns. No ambitious promises were made by the publishers as to just when the paper would come out. It was to be "published semi-occasionally by the Typographical Society for the proprietors." It was the fourth issue, June 28, 1869, before R. H. J. Comer announced himself as the printer of the paper, the first printer of Canyon City (105).
The salutatory, a gem of frankness, flashing a dry humor which has not been lost by subsequent Canyon City editors, was en titled "Our Say." It read as follows:
Believing that the time is far distant when the public interests of Grant county will justify the publication of a large-sized paper, the proprietors of the City Journal have, at a small expense, determined to issue a paper whenever they feel so disposed, and we hope our brethren in the same calling will do as they have a mind to.
To the generous public, we will say that it is our intention to have a large circulation, but if they do not wish to read the Journal they can throw it out of their (we hope) peaceful homes; and our terms are such that all can have it in their libraries for future reference.
The latest news our readers will, in all probability find in the Mountaineer, Oregonian, Herald, N. Y. Tribune, La Crosse Democrat, or any other paper they are in the habit of picking up and reading.
Local news being of such a nature that everybody, or any other man, knows every other person's business, except their own, we shall publish only such as suits our purpose.
Communications of the long-winded kind will, perhaps, appear in our columns.
Hoping that all our friends will take a lively interest in their own affairs, we conclude our say.
"This establishment," the City Journal told its readers in an advertisement, "is not prepared to print any books or posters, but can do small job printing if the Devil can be found at home."
In the early seventies the name was changed to the Canyon City Express and later to the Grant County Express (106). H. R. Gale, formerly of Roseburg, became editor in 1876, about the time the name was changed to the Grant County Times. In 1879 a new owner, S. H. Shepherd, changed the name to the Grant County News, an independent paper issued on Saturdays. The next editors, who carried the paper, successively, until D. I. Asbury, later of McMinnville, purchased it in 1886, were H. J. Neal, W. C. McFadden and J. T. Donnelly, who gave Asbury a bill of sale July 27, 1886.
Mr. Asbury carried the paper along until 1898, when he sold to P. F. Chandler and Robert Glen. After five years Mr. Glen sold his interest to C. J. Mcintosh, who remained five years. He later became professor of industrial editing at the Oregon State Agricultural College. Five years later, in 1908, Clinton P. Haight, a few years out of the law school of the University of Oregon, purchased the Mcintosh half, and the firm of Chandler & Haight was formed. In the same year the new firm purchased the Blue Mountain Eagle, which had been moved from Long Creek to Canyon City eight years before and which had been published by Patterson & Ward. The papers were consolidated under the name Blue Mountain Eagle, which has continued down to the present. Through the old News end of the consolidation, however, the Eagle traces its ancestry clear back to the beginnings of the little old City Journal of early statehood days.
Joaquin Miller, former Eugene newspaper man and later county judge of Grant county, known to world-wide fame as the "poet of the Sierras," was a frequent contributor to the Canyon City paper in the sixties and seventies.
William (Bud) Thompson, lifelong friend, who had worked for him in Eugene on the Eugene City Herald-Register-Review (titles changed frequently in those days of federal suppressions in the early 60's), speaks highly, in his book of reminiscences of Miller's courage and of his honesty and independence.
Chandler & Haight have a few copies of the county's first paper and of the Grant County Express. Complete files of these publications were destroyed by fire.
The old Long Creek Eagle, which in time gave its name to one of the most picturesque of Oregon country papers, was founded by C. E. Dustin and Peter Connolly in November 1886. Though the official population of the town (Long Creek) was 150 or so, they carried on until September 1889, when they sold to John H. Kahn, who two years later sold to Orin L. Patterson. In 1898, the same year when Mr. Chandler bought the News, the name of the Long Creek paper was changed to Blue Mountain Eagle.
Clinton P. Haight, present editor of the Eagle, and co-publisher with P. F. Chandler, is known as one of the leading authorities on the coyote, which he seriously regards as the cagiest and perhaps the most intelligent of animals. He was elected to the legislature in 1934 and made a name for satirically humorous speeches.
When the Eagle flew over to Canyon City, the Long Creek Ranger was placed in the journalistic saddle by Charles A. Coe, in 1900, as a Friday independent Republican weekly. In 1908 Weir & Allen (W. E. Weir and J. H. Allen) purchased the paper and were still conducting the paper when it was finally suspended in 1930. Through most of the 1920's, the Ranger was edited and published by Grace Porter (Mrs. Tanler).
One other paper, perhaps, needs a brief mention. Keeler H. Gabbert, formerly of Josephine county and later of St. Helens, whose urge to start papers exceeded his strength to keep them going, launched a paper called the Avalanche-Journal in 1896. It was described in Ayer's for 1897 as "Republican. Eight pages. 11×16. $1.50." It soon faded out.
Prairie City.—The Grant County Journal is the old Prairie City Miner under a change of name dating back to 1912. The Miner was established by W. W. Watson and edited, successively, by A. M. F. Kircheiner, C. P. Haight, William E. Weir, and Albert G. Owen.
Editors and publishers of the Journal since 1913 have been, successively, Jesse H. Allen and Philip F. A. Boche, Don Jolley, George H. Flagg, C. S. Rice and F. E. Donaldson, W. Glenn, and Lester A. Wolf.
UNION
Union.—In a period of more than 60 years (107), Union has had at least four newspapers—the Mountain Sentinel, the Grande Ronde Post, the Oregon Scout, and the Eastern Oregon Republican. Of these, only one survives, the Eastern Oregon Republican, still published at Union.
The Blue Mountain Sentinel of La Grande was moved to Union in the middle 70's (probably 1876, after the loss by La Grande of the county seat to Union in 1874. Mrs. H. M. McComas, widow of the publisher, says, "about 1875.") The paper, then published by E. S. McComas and his partner-printer, Jasper Stevens, was a seven-column folio, issued each Saturday and printed on a Washington hand-press. The original subscription price was $4 a year. The paper, Democratic in politics, was edited, successively, by E. S. McComas, his brother W. H. McComas, F. M. Ish, Ed. E. Gates, John E. Jeffrey, J. B. Fithian, L. B. Rinehart, J. O. Kuhn and George H. Owen, partners, until its suspension in 1886. The plant was moved to La Grande by Owen & Kuhn that year and used to start the Journal, a Democratic paper.
A high point in the history of this paper was its publication of the first daily edition in Union county. Beginning Monday, September 3, 1883, L. J. Davis and J. E. Jeffreys published the Daily Sentinel, a four-column folio, in the Sentinel office at Union. The daily, which appears to have been a separate venture from the weekly, ran for six consecutive issues, then suspended.
Another achievement was the publication of an Indian war extra June 20, 1877, while the paper was still a weekly. The editor was E. S. McComas, elsewhere mentioned (108) in connection with his interview with Chief Joseph. The extra, apparently printed on a job no press, was really more of a special edition, since it contained other material and was not made-over from a previous regular issue. The text, with its hortatory editorial head and its skeletonized construction, follows:
SENTINEL EXTRA
CITIZENS TO ARMS
Indians Murdering Settlers on Camas
Prairie, Slate Creek, and Palouse
Seven or Eight Hundred Indians
Supposed to be in Arms!!
Union, June 20, 10 o'clock A. M. Latest reports by courier from Walla Walla to Mr. Veasey in Wallowa, inform the settlers that a large band of Indians are heading in the direction of the Wallowa Valley.
Captain Perry and many soldiers under his command, surrounded in a canyon on Slate Creek.
Captain Perry killed.
Lieutenant Boomis wounded.
Many soldiers killed and the remainder fighting desperately against heavy odds.
Thirty families, from Camas Prairie to the mouth of White Bird, killed.
Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Palouse, Yakima, Flat Head, and White Bluff Indians all massing together for war.
One hundred volunteers, citizens of Walla Walla, start to Idaho this morning.
Such are the telegraphic and couriers' reports, received here. Citizens of Union County are requested to meet at Union this evening at 4 o'clock to report number of available men, horses, and arms.
E. S. McComas
С. О. Skackhamer
R. S. Cates
M. Johnston
D. F. Dwight
M. Bockowitz
E. C. Brainerd
H. F. Bloch
J. H. Shinn
Sieg. Baer
A. Maer
The Grand Ronde Post was established in Union in July 1882 by John L. Sharpstein and J. C. Swash, from Walla Walla. Mr. Sharpstein, who was a young lawyer, remained with the paper but a short time, then returned to Walla Walla and re-entered the law, becoming prominent later in both law and politics. Mr. Swash conducted the paper alone after Sharpstein left.
The Post is remembered for having brought the first cylinder press to Union county. Politically it was independent. It was a seven-column folio, issued on Fridays. The paper lasted only a year, discontınuing after a fire that destroyed its quarters Tuesday, June 19, 1883. The Friday after the fire Mr. Swash issued No. 43 of Volume 1 from the office of the Mountain Sentinel, and that, a small-sized publication, was the last number of the Post.
The Oregon Scout, a weekly newspaper Democratic in politics, was Union's next newspaper. It was established in Union in July 1884 by Amos K. Jones and Charles M. Jones, photographers, and Emery Clingham, a printer. At first issued as a four-column folio, it was printed one page at a time on a quarter medium job press but was later enlarged to a six-column eight-page paper, printed on a hand-power cylinder press. Later the firm was changed to Jones & Chancey. B. Chancey took over the publication March 5, 1891, continuing for several years. Amos K. Jones succeeded Chancey and conducted the paper until his death in 1899. W. H. McComas then took charge, continuing until 1901, when W. A. Maxwell purchased the paper and began a long regime, which lasted until December 1916. Floyd W. Maxwell, son of the publisher, then took charge and continued publication until February 11, 1918, when he went to war and the Scout plant was sold to the Eastern Oregon Republican, its competitor in the field, and the Scout discontinued. Floyd Maxwell, returning from the service, became editor of the Emerald, University of Oregon student paper, and later became motion-picture editor of the Oregonian, thence going into theatre management and into public relations work.
Others connected with the publication of the Scout during the ownership of Mr. Maxwell, at different times, were Christ Christensen, Lowell & Sheets, R. J. Kitchen, and B. F. Wilson.
The Eastern Oregon Republican, latest paper to be established in Union, is now in undisputed possession of the field. It is the second paper of the name in Union county; the name of the old Gazette at La Grande was changed to Eastern Oregon Republican in 1879 and remained such for two years. The Republican in Union was launched by the Eastern Oregon Publishing Company, a corporation, with G. M. Irwin as the first editor, in September 1888. Irwin was succeeded April 2, 1889, by Frank C. Middleton, who carried on until April 1, 1890. (109). Lewis J. Davis was the next editor, continuing until March 7, 1903, when the plant was purchased from L. J. Davis and M. F. Davis by Scibird & Glover, with George A. Scibird as editor and manager. John C. Glover died in February 1908, ending a partnership of 24 years, 19 in Colorado and five in Oregon. His interest was purchased by Mr. Scibird, who continued the publication until May 17, 1930, when, after 27 years under one management, the paper was sold to W. C. and Violet Lewis, of Goldfield, Nevada, who a short time later installed a linotype. The Lewises remained in charge for several years. The present editor (1939) is Don MacPherson.
From May 1, 1894, to November 9, 1895, under the Davis editorship, the Republican was issued semi-weekly. The paper at first was an eight-column folio, but in 1890 was changed to six columns, eight pages, and on December 23, 1907, became a seven-column folio. The paper has been printed on the one press throughout, a Campbell cylinder, operated first by hand power, then by a gasoline engine, and finally by electric power. The paper was handset until November 1919, when a Unitype was installed, succeeded fourteen years later by the Linotype.
The sale of the Republican by Mr. Scibird in 1930, after 27 meant the retirement of real veteran, years' connection with after 61 years in journalism. Mr. Scibird, then 74, native of Illinois, had done his early journalism in his native state and in Colorado. Among other achievements he issued the first daily paper published in Leadville, the Leadville Eclipse, printed on Washington handpress, in 1879.
Mr. Scibird, whose great hobby was horseback-riding, continued his riding until his last years. He died in Union February 1936, within few days of his 80th birthday. In an interview given at the time of his retirement Mr. Scibird summarized his pet ideas as follows:
Working hours, 7 a. m. to 5 p. m., winter and summer, longer if necessary
Office always in order.
All bills paid promptly; help paid always at end of week.
No delicacy in collecting—no hesitancy in asking for money earned.
Always fair with employees.
Never a cheap workman—a fair price for good work.
Elgin.—The Elgin Recorder, first newspaper published in Elgin, succeeded the Annotator, published in the neighboring village of Summerville, when the owner, J. E. Devine, correctly decided that the town was too small to require or support their paper, which had been established in 1889. Devine sold the small plant to A. R. Tuttle, father of Lee B. Tuttle, who has been prominent in Oregon journal ism for many years, and G. B. Swinehart.
The new owners, two young school-teachers at the time, moved the plant to Elgin, to which a branch line of the O. R. & N. railroad was about to extend northward from LaGrande. The move was made in February of 1891, and it required all of one day to move the equipment through the deep snow on horse-drawn bobsleds the eight miles from Summerville to Elgin. The first issue of the Recorder came off the press February 24, 1891. The publishers distinguished themselves by surviving two fires within a year of each other. In each instance the small plant was wiped out, within the first four years of the paper's existence, without missing an issue. The second fire, too, came in 1893, during depression days. Mr. Tuttle Sr., who had bought Mr. Swinehart's interest, died in 1904, and his work was carried on by his son Lee. (110).
E. H. Flagg, veteran Oregon publisher, bought the paper from Lee Tuttle in 1908, later selling to W. J. Henry, who carried on until 191 7, meanwhile installing the first Linotype in Elgin. Mr. Henry, who is now living at the national home for union printers at Colorado Springs, sold the paper back to Lee Tuttle and associates. E. E. Southard, another newspaper veteran, was the next owner, purchasing the paper from Mr. Tuttle after about 16 years newspaper experience in Portland. A year later he sold to W. M. Dynes, who stayed less than a year before selling in 1922 to Earle Richardson, of the Clatskanie Chief. Two years later Richardson sold to J. M. Cummins, who remained a year and then (1925) sold to J. Y. Wright. He soon sold to Fred C. Sefton and went back to Montana. Mr. Sefton sold to Manly M. Arant, Polk county boy, brother of Lucien P. Arant of Baker, in 1928. Arant disposed of the paper in 1930 to Everett W. Fitch and Paul T. Sagaser. W. L. Flower and Mrs. Ruth P. Flower were the next owners, followed by A. R. McCall September 1, 1931. The present publisher (1939) is Fred Guthrey.
A fire which, September 27, 1930, burned a block of residences, a church, and a lodge building, gave Manly Arant, then publisher, a chance for a metropolitan feat. He rushed the Recorder forms with the story of the fire to La Grande, the county seat, 20 miles away, ran off an extra there, and sold 300 copies to curious La Granders at 10 cents each.
Another Elgin paper, founded in 1908, about the time Mr. Flagg bought the Recorder, was the Elgin Leader, H. A. Snyder and H. H. Palmer publishers and H. H. Palmer editor. It was a Thursday Republican paper. The Recorder was too strong, and the Leader soon suspended.
Summerville, an unfulfilled hope in Union county, had three newspapers in four years, and since then has had no more.
La Grande.—The newspaper history of La Grande revolves to a considerable extent around the Currey family from 1896, when George Hoskins Currey started the Eastern Oregon Observer, forerunner of the Evening Observer of today, to 1931, when his son George Huntington Currey, who had successfully published several Oregon newspapers, sold out his District News and retired from journalism to devote his energies for a time to psychological and sociological research, chiefly in California, (111).
La Grande, county seat of Union county, was founded in 1861 by Oregon Trail immigrants, just two years before the town of Union was started 15 miles to the southeast. The early history of La Grande journalism is to a degree the account of the rivalry of these two ambitious communities—rivalry over the county seat and rivalry over railroad development when the Union Pacific built through the country in 1884.
For seven years after its founding La Grande was without a newspaper. Then, suddenly, two newspapers raced for the field; and in the course of a few hours, as Mr. Currey expresses it, "La Grande became a properly 'fortified' post-Civil war community with both a Democratic and a Republican weekly newspaper. The race for the honor of printing the first newspaper in La Grande still lingers in the memories of the pioneers. The Democrats won. Editor E. S. McComas and Printer John E. Jeffrey rushed out Vol. 1 No. 1 of the Mountain Sentinel a few hours before Publishers Micajah Baker and George Coggan were able to get the first number of their Republican Blue Mountain Times off the press." After about a year, Baker, who was an attorney, and Coggan, a stockman and rancher, killed by Indians near Meacham in 1878, discontinued the Times.
The Times was never particularly strong. An examination of the third number of the paper, issued Saturday, May 2, 1868, shows little editorial and less news; the editor's shears kept the printers in copy.
Page 3 carried a column and a half of side-headed local news. As usual in the papers of the day, great emphasis was laid on how the news was obtained. For instance:
Body Found.—We learn from O. R. Wilkinson, of this city, that the body of a man was found . . .
Horses Stolen.—We are informed by a gentleman just down from Shasta . . .
On page 4, among the three columns of clipped miscellany and news, is a half-column story from the San Francisco Bulletin indicating the prevalence of the same style on the metropolitan paper.
The Times was succeeded, in September 1870, by a second Democratic paper launched to compete with the Sentinel. This paper, published by John W. Kelley and Charles V. Harding, was discontinued after a short time.
M. P. Bull, later founder of the Pendleton East Oregonian, took over the Sentinel for a time, but after La Grande lost the county seat to Union he turned the paper back to McComas, August 22, and associated 1874. McComas moved it to Union in 1876[1] with him Jasper H. Stevens in place of John E. Jeffrey as printer and co-publisher. For several years La Grande worried along without a newspaper.
This McComas, incidentally, was a personage. He had [2] come to Oregon from Iowa in 1862 and started mining in Baker county. He was appointed a deputy assessor in the district comprising Union county, then a part of Baker, and in this capacity made the first assessment ever made in the Grand Ronde valley, thus getting his first glimpse of that beautiful country. In 1866, having moved to La Grande, he was chosen clerk of the new Union county. His connection with the starting of the Sentinel has been told. Up to 1881 he continued editor of the Sentinel in its new home at Union. All the time he was a leader in Oregon Democratic politics.
In 1865 he organized a writing school in Baker county, giving the district a name that has persisted to this day. So many of the residents had to sign X as a substitute mark for their names that McComas at once got the idea of teaching them to write and of naming the district. He called it Sawbuck, from the resemblance of the "signatures" to that useful bit of woodshed furniture.
It was while he was editor of the Sentinel that he accompanied the peace commissioners into the Wallowa valley in 1877 to try to settle with Chief Joseph just before the beginning of the Nez Perce war. He and another scout went boldly into Chief Joseph's camp, though the tribe was, of course, far from friendly. From this meeting McComas was able to send a big news story to all the important Pacific Coast papers by wire. It was really an interview with the old warrior. The old chief sat, with his fighting men in a circle around him and the two scouts as he told his story of the trouble with the whites. The chief [3] got down on his knees and drew a rough map of northeastern Oregon in the sand with his fingers, drew an inner circle representing the Wallowa valley, and with tears in his eyes, said: "This has been the home of my fathers as long as the oldest Nez Perce can remember. You can take all outside of this valley; but this valley is my home, and I am going to fight for it and my children will fight for it. That is all I have to say." And he motioned the scouts to leave.
It was in this same year of 1877 that a group of Republican business men and property-owners, headed by W. J. Snodgrass and Daniel Chaplin, founded the La Grande Gazette. This paper, whose first editor was "a man named Abbott" [M. H.] who moved the Oregon Tribune plant from The Dalles, continued as the leading paper of La Grande until well into the late 90's. Abbott's successor was Micajah Baker, who had edited the Times in 1868. After a short time Rev. H. K. Hines, president of the pioneer Blue Mountain University, became editor.
Sheddon F. Wilson, a newly-arrived attorney, took over the Gazette in 1879 and changed the name to the Eastern Oregon Republican. In about a year Snodgrass and his business partner (named Minor) had the paper back. In June 1881 E. L. Eckley, young graduate of Blue Mountain University, and E. T. Beidleman, printer, purchased the paper (and changed the name, says Currey, without giving the new name). After a year Eckley became sole publisher until September 1884, when the paper again reverted to Snodgrass. Alonzo Cleaver, the next editor, who died in Portland in 1938, restored the original name, and the Gazette, as a Republican weekly, continued until about 1898.
The year 1884 saw the coming of the railroad, making possible the industrial development of La Grande. The new line missed La Grande by a mile, and Union by two miles. These were considerable distances in those days of small towns and slow transportation. "While Union stormed its indignation, La Grande moved down to the tracks, 'New Town' having outdistanced 'Old Town' before the rails were connected and train service inaugurated."[4]
So when Mr. Eckley gave up the Gazette he had his eyes on the new town growing up around the railroad. He teamed up with Don Carlos Boyd and founded the Argus, the first newspaper in La Grande's present business center. C. H. Finn, an attorney, soon succeeded Boyd and edited the paper until a fire in August 1886 wiped out both the building and the paper.
In the fall of the same year J. O. Kuhn and George H. Owen,
Notes
[edit]composing-room, used it as a recommendation and landed a new job from a man who, reading it, couldn't see that it was anything else. There was the more obviously apocryphal yarn of the two printers who inked the feet and spurs of two roosters and set them to fighting in the back shop on some big sheets of newsprint. Greeley's favorite typo set the resulting "copy" with no particular trouble until he came to one long, wavy scratch made by one of the spurs. This had to be referred to Greeley, who immediately deciphered it as "unconstitutional."
76. He lost the money in the salmon-canning business in British Columbia and from then on stuck closer to journalism.
77. The firm later established the Mining Journal at San Francisco and ran it with great success.
78. August, 1923.
79. Letter from company dated September 26, 1936.
80. Article by Ralph D. Casey, then professor of journalism in the University of Oregon, Oregon Exchanges, February, 1923, page 3.
81. Powers, History of Oregon Literature, 292.
82. ibid.
83. For this story by Claire Dunbar Roberts, see Matrix, national organ of Theta Sigma Phi, for April, 1934.
84. His Pendleton career is covered in the Pendleton part of this history.
85. Oregon Exchanges, May, 1924, page 7.
86. F. T. Gilbert, Historic Sketches, 367.
87. F. B. Ludington, op. cit., 261.
88. Gilbert, op. cit., 367.
89. Parsons, History of Umatilla County, 284.
90. Personal interview, August 10, 1938.
91. Parsons, op. cit., 205.
92. Parsons, op. cit., 205. Interview by Sam Raddon, Jr., Oregon Journal.
94. Personal interview, August 10, 1938.
95. F. T. Gilbert, Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia, and Garfield Counties and Umatilla County, Oregon, p. 368.
96. Letter to Colin V. Dyment, September 3, 1921.
97. ibid.
98. According to Ayer's Directory.
99. As told by E. P. Dodd, former publisher of the Pendleton Morning Tribune, in the Herald's anniversary number, September 17, 1936.
100. News-Reporter, March, 1938.
101. The Telephone.
102. The Reporter and the Courier.
103. Formerly of the Reporter.
104. Columbia University, master's thesis by Irl S. McSherry, 1925.
105. Douglas C. McMurtrie in the Typo Student, Seattle, April, 1935.
106. Information in this paragraph obtained in part in personal letter from P. F. Chandler, of Chandler & Haight, Blue Mountain Eagle.
107. George A. Scibird, History of Newspapers of Union Oregon, from 1870 to 1933, unpublished.
108. On page 347 of this volume.
109. Data from George A. Scibird, op. cit.
110. Elgin Recorder, Feb. 28, 1935.
111. George Huntington Currey has in his library old files and records covering, in thorough fashion, the newspaper history of La Grande and, to a certain extent, of the rest of Union county. From these files and from personal conferences with