In 1870 he took up journalism, at which he made his living the remaining twenty-nine years of his life. He bought the Corvallis Gazette and became its editor. The respect that "Beautiful Willamette" and his other literary contributions had brought him, is indicated by the following notice in the Oregon State Journal, Eugene City, March 19, 1870:
It is reported that the Corvallis Gazette has been bought by the Union men of Benton County, and will be conducted henceforth in the interest of the Republican party. Mr. S. L. Simpson is to be editor....We congratulate the people of Benton on the change. Mr. Simpson is one of the ablest and most pleasing writers in the State, and he will make a No. 1 paper.
The Oregon State Journal continued to have such a high opinion of him that H. R. Kincaid selected him as editor of that paper during his absence of a year in Washington, D. C. Meanwhile, the Gazette had not been a successful venture financially and his father had been appointed United States Surveyor General of Oregon, with headquarters at Eugene. Kincaid, wielder of a trenchant pen, chose the poet to carry on while he was away, and after Simpson's death remembered his brilliancy but irresponsibility as follows:
Sam Simpson lived in Eugene when his father, Hon. Ben Simpson, was U. S. Surveyor General of Oregon and had his office here. For a year in 1874 and 1875 while he resided here, Sam was engaged, during the absence of the editor in Washington, to write editorials for the Journal. His writings were brilliant but irregular and could not be depended upon, as some weeks little or nothing was furnished. He had been editor of the Corvallis Gazette before he came to Eugene and has since been connected with various newspapers in Oregon.
