History of Oregon Newspapers/Lake County
LAKE
Lakeview.—The first newspaper published in southern Oregon east of the Cascade mountains was the State Line Herald, established in 1878 at Lakeview for the publication of land office notices from the newly established United States land office in that town. James H. Evans was the first register of the office, and George Conn the first receiver. C. B. Watson, who helped get the Tidings, first paper at Ashland, started eight years before, was the first editor of the State Line Herald, so named because Lakeview is only 15 miles from the California border. (128)
The plant, costing $1,000, was purchased second-hand at Camp Bidwell, California. It was a four-page six-column paper, for which the subscriber paid $3 a year.
The best story handled by the Herald, in the opinion of Mr. Watson, was the first description of Crater Lake ever published. The Oregon Historical Society has a copy of the issue containing this article, and part of it was reprinted in Walling's History of Southern Oregon. Mr. Watson did not remain long in journalism but rounded out an active and useful career as a public official in Oregon. Mr. Watson served as district attorney for the first judicial district, then made up of Josephine, Jackson, Klamath, and Lake counties. Retiring from office, he practiced law in Ashland. W. W. Watson, later employed by the Oregonian, was a member of the Herald's staff for some time. Mary E. Watson (later Mrs. Fuller Snelling), a member of the Herald staff, was Lake county's first newspaper woman. She worked as a typesetter on the paper for some time.
The State Line Herald building was destroyed by fire, in July, 1880, with all the files. There is a copy of the first issue in the state library at Salem.
The Lake County Examiner, established in 1879 by C. A. Cogs well and Stephen P. Moss, with Frank Coffin as editor, was similar in size and format to the Herald. Its early files also were burned in a fire which destroyed the plant in 190o, but a few copies of the early numbers are still in existence. Snelling & Cogswell are listed in the 1884 Ayer's as editors and publishers.
Both papers were printed in small type, not larger than non-pareil (six-point), with the land notices set in agate (5½). As in the case of most western newspapers of those days, the first page contained no news, being taken up, instead, with anecdotes, fiction, feature stories under small label heads. Both papers carried advertising of the card variety on the first page.
There was noting distinctive. They were good representatives of the journalism of the time.
In its statement of policy, published in the first issue, the Herald was characteristically confident but at the same time receptive, like most other frontier papers, to all the help it could get from subscribers, in news, circulation, and advertising. Some excerpts may give an idea:
In short, it is the purpose of the publishers of the Herald to make it in every respect a complete newspaper, the rival of any interior journal published . . .
Each subscriber can easily render us very great assistance and enable us to improve and enlarge . . . by getting us a subscriber occasionally . . . We will regard it as a great favor also if those who are interested in this section of county will send us items of news from every district or precinct in which the Herald is circulated. Mail them to us in any shape. It is sufficient merely to give us the particulars briefly. Subscription, $3 in advance.
The Lake County Examiner did itself a somewhat similar service in the issue of July 29, 1882, just after the facilities for doing "job" (commercial) printing had been installed (no bromidic phrase is omitted):
The Examiner office is fitted out with an Eight-Medium, latest improved Gordon-Franklin job press, which, with a splendid lot of the newest and best styles of job type and a large stock of all kind of printers' stationery, enables us to do any kind of work in our line ... in a manner to suit the most fastidious, and upon reasonable and satisfactory terms.
Patronize your home institutions. In the meantime, please remember that the subscription price of the Examiner is only $3 per annum, or, if paid in advance, $2.50.
The paper is now an established and permanent institution; is conducted in the interest of the county in which it is published; is the organ of no person, clique, or corporation; will always be found ready and willing to advocate any measure tending to advance the interest of the county at large and express its opinion upon all matters within its province without fear or favor. It has proved itself to be a live local journal, fully up to the mark in that respect.
Lake County's pioneer papers shared the general early Oregon journalistic disregard of possible libel suits. The "Oregon style" was their style, decidedly. The Herald of July 29, 1882, thus subtly expressed its opinion of a newly elected legislator of opposite political affiliation:
If it were not for our newly elected legislator, it would be difficult to find anything to say through a newspaper in this county these dull days. We owe him a debt of gratitude which we fear we never will be able to liquidate. If he should steal a beef this week, he'd swear he didn't next, and that makes trouble, and out of trouble we get many items—and likewise many troubles out of an item sometimes—"getting licked," for example . . . is a bad man, and these bad men are the very life of a wild frontier.
The Examiner also was plain-spoken, though seldom as directly personal as this.
Within a few years (129), probably in 1883, these two frontier papers were merged. James H. Evans, already mentioned as register of the land office, purchased the State Line Herald from C. B. Watson in 1881, but it was run by W. W. Watson and B. P. Watson for a year or so thereafter. Mr. Evans also bought the Examiner and kept its name when the consolidation was effected but adopted Republican politics for the strengthened paper.
Allen & Beach were listed in Ayer's as editors and publishers in the 1885 directory. This regime was followed in 1886 by Beach & Beach (Frank W. and Seneca C.). Seneca Beach was an old Iowa printer who had come to Oregon in 1881 and had helped Joseph A. Bowdoin get out the first issue of the Linkville Star, Klamath's first newspaper, three years later. He became editor and publisher in 1891 and seven years later took in as a partner J. E. McGarry, a former San Francisco reporter, who later became editor. Frank W. Beach later for many years conducted the Pacific Northwest Hotel News at Portland.
The linotype, first one in Lake county, was installed during the ownership of C. O. Metzker. Fred J. Bowman was the next owner. Meanwhile Fred P. Cronemiller, his wife, and three sons, who had started the Evening Herald at Klamath Falls in 1906, purchased the Examiner in 1911. The Cronemiller family retained ownership of the Examiner until October 24, 1935, when C. J. Gillette and Hugh McGilvra of Forest Grove purchased the paper. A son, G. D. Cronemiller, became editor on the death of his father in 1924 and conducted the paper until the sale. C. J. Gillette is (1939) editor and manager.
The biggest story ever run in the Lakeview Examiner was, according to an item in the Roseburg Review, the story of a Silver Lake holocaust in which 40 persons lost their lives. A lamp got on fire in an upstairs hall during Christmas exercises in 1894, and the Christmas group was trapped. The Examiner got out an extra December 27. Silver Lake is nearly a hundred miles from Lakeview, and winter communication then was not what it is now. The Examiner, too, was a weekly paper. The Roseburg Review's head on the Silver Lake Story was "An Awful Holocaust."
Another interesting Lakeview paper was the Lake County Rustler, launched in 1895 as a Thursday weekly supporting the People's party. J. C. Oliver was editor and publisher. After several changes of ownership and a change of name to the Herald, in 1902, it was purchased from William Wagner, editor and publisher, in 1911 and merged with the Examiner under the older paper's name.
The History of Central Oregon (1905) tells[1] of a race of publishers for the rich land-notice business around Silver Lake, in which one paper managed to get born just one day ahead of another. William Holden, publisher of the Review at Prineville, associated himself with W. A. Bell, U. S. commissioner at Prineville, and started for Silver Lake with a printing plant. Bailey & Black of the Crook County Journal, Prineville, got a printing plant and started at the same time. L. N. Kelsay bought the Shaniko Leader from Holder and also started for Silver Lake, not knowing about the others. The three plants arrived at their destination almost at the same time. Bailey & Black and Kelsay consolidated their plants and began publication of the Central Oregonian, March 5, 1903, under the firm name of Bailey & Kelsay. The next day (March 6) Holder and Bell's plant delivered the first issue of the Silver Lake Bulletin, with L. N. Liggett editor and manager. It ran for 38 issues and in November was absorbed by the Central Oregonian. Most of the timber around the town had been thrown into a federal forest reserve, one of the earliest under the Roosevelt-Pinchot conservation policy.
The great fire of May 22, 1900, when the greater part of the Lakeview district, including the buildings and much of the equipment of both papers, was destroyed, gave the newspapers an opportunity for cooperation in the issuance of extras giving details of the disaster. Apparently in those days being a day or two late with an extra was a matter of no great worry. The Examiner, with what it was able to save out of the fire, got out a typographically nondescript extra the next day, then lent its equipment to the harder-hit Rustler to get out its extra a day or two later. The Rustler's expression of gratitude was classic. "We cannot," said the Rustler, "express our gratitude here as we feel it. It is the kind of a favor that touches the soul deeper than words or ordinary favors. What ever we may do in the future, run a newspaper, ranch, or saw wood, this act will be cherished as the one pleasant memory of the Lakeview fire."
A few months after the fire both papers enlarged, the Examiner becoming an eight-page paper, 26×40, (eight columns), and the Rustler changing from a three-column to a seven-column eight-page paper. In 1905 the county had three papers[2]—two at Lakeview, the Examiner, published by C. O. Metzker; the Herald, with William Wagner in charge, and one at Silver Lake, the Central Oregonian.
The Lake County Tribune of Lakeview was not always a Lakeview paper. It was started at Fleetwood in the spring of 1916, by L. B. Charles and his son, Glen. The plant was moved to Fort Rock, where until 1919 Mr. Charles used it to publish the Fort Rock News. A former paper at Fort Rock, the Times, started by William A. Busch, had disappeared when Mr. Charles took the Fleetwood plant there.
Meanwhile the Silver Lake Leader, with William Holder as editor much of the time, had been running since August 12, 1907. Its origin is a little different from that of most newspapers. It was not installed in a neglected field, with potential business beckoning. The Central Oregonian was already at Silver Lake, having been running for four years. The editor, N. W. Taylor, however, had antagonized several of the local business men by his manner of writing up the news and by what they regarded as unjustified editorial "roasting." Finally, in the summer of 1907, a small group of them got together and decided to put in another paper and freeze out the Central Oregonian. Three of those present at the session were F. M. Chrisman, G. B. Wardwell, and John W. Body. (132). Mr. Chrisman was invited to publish the paper, but lacking in journalistic experience, he declined to take the responsibility. What the group did was to subscribe $250 each to install the plant and hire William Holder, an editor of considerable experience in Central Oregon, to edit the paper for the little corporation. This was Mr. Holder's last editorial position, which he held until he died four years later.
The Leader's competition proved too much for the Central Oregonian, and after a few months the corporation bought out the opposition. The Leader had run its circulation up to 500 for a four-page six-column folio, half of which was American Type Founders readyprint. The Central Oregonian s list, meanwhile, had dwindled, Mr. Chrisman says, to 60, and the Leader group took over the plant, Washington hand-press and all, for $500, and closed down the paper.
Editors following Mr. Holder were T. H. Jolly, Guy La Follette, Mr. Chrisman himself (1915-16), and E. K. Henderson to December 19, 1919. Mr. Chrisman recalls that when he took over the editorship it was all so new to him that it took him two days to write one editorial. He stayed with the job, however, until he had vastly increased his facility. The Leader fire is memorable. Mr. Chrisman, who had given up the editorship, was managing a stage line between Silver Lake and Bend. He was in Bend during the deep snow of December, 1919, when he got word of the big Silver Lake fire. Reassured that his editor was getting out some sort of a paper, he remained in Bend for several days, only to find on his return that the Leader had missed an issue. This meant that it had lost its entry at the post office and would have to be re-entered. More or less in disgust, the owners accepted the offer of L. B. Charles to buy the paper. There was nothing much to sell after the fire but the subscription list of 500 or 600 at $2 a year. L. B. and Glen Charles moved their Fort Rock plant to Silver Lake and combined with the Leader as the Lake County Tribune and Silver Lake Leader, in January, 1920. They continued its publication until April, 1928, when they purchased the old plant of the Lake County Rustler and moved the Tribune and Leader to Lakeview, where, under the title Lake County Tribune, the paper has been published since.
The Tribune ran as a semi-weekly for four years, part of the time under the editorship of Josephine Barry, former University of Oregon journalism student, and L. H. Van Winkle, formerly of the Albany Democrat-Herald. It was changed to a weekly June 16, 1932, under the editorship of Harry E. Dutton, University of Oregon journalism graduate, who had been the first sports editor of the Eugene Morning News. L. B. Charles and Glen Charles continued as publishers until 1937, when they sold to Thornton Gale, another Oregon graduate, who had been editor for a year, and C. L. Edger ton, all-around printer, who became business manager.
The Register, a Thursday independent weekly, was launched at Lakeview in 1898, while the Rustler was running as a Populist paper. The editor and publisher was J. G. Walters. It failed to answer the bell for the Ayer's directory of 190o. After the Register faded, however, the Rustler was again listed as an independent newspaper.
Notes[edit]
his father and with A. W. Nelson, former city editor of the Observer; from data in files furnished by Harold M. Finlay, former publisher, and from a review prepared by E. L. Eckley for the Union County Pioneer Society, Mr. Currey has gathered a detailed story of La Grande journalism—from which the account here given is, in considerable part, derived.
112. Sunday Oregonian, March 26, 1905, page 48.
113. Sunday Oregonian, loc. cit.
114. As McComas told the story.
115. Currey, loc cit.
116. Alfred Powers, op. cit. 663.
117. ibid.
118. Isaac Hiatt, Thirty-one Years in Baker County, 140 ff.
119. Hiatt, op. cit, 151.
120. Fred Lockley, Oregon Journal, October 29, 1936, ed. pg.
121. Sheldon F. Sackett, interview with Gus W. Kramer, of San Francisco, in Coos Bay Times, July 14, 1936.
122. Bancroft's History of Oregon, 692-3.
123. History of Coos and Curry Counties, ch. XI, 153 ff
124. op. cit., 154.
125. Copy of paper of September 7, 1904, found by Pinkey Anderson, son of C. J. Anderson, noted in North Bend Harbor, July 16, 1936.
126. Issue of December 9, 1886.
127. Article by E. C. Roberts, published in Myrtle Point Herald.
128. In Sentinel's 20th anniversary editorial, January, 1925.
129. Much of the data in this chapter is contained in an article by Mary E. Conn (now Mrs. Joe C. Brown), Redmond Spokesman, in Oregon Exchanges, November 1925 and January 1926.
130. ibid.
131. Page 1067.
132. History of Central Oregon, 1065.
133. Information given this writer by F. M. Chrisman, who after 30 years fails to recall name of fourth man.
134. Mrs. Turner is authority for most of the information herein contained, which she wrote for this history in a personal letter in 1935.
135. Copies of early numbers of paper in hands of F. F. Eddy, Port Orford Post editor.
136. Anna Jerzyk, in Rainier Review, December 12, 1926. Miss Jerzyk, then news editor of the Review, is the source of the greater part of the information used here regarding the Review.
137. Noted in Miss Jerzyk's article.
138. Review, Friday, November 6, 1896.
139. In masthead of Review, January 1, 1897.
140. Mr. Mitchell's memory is as hazy as Mr. Imus's.
141. Review, March 25, 1932.
142. Article by David Davis in St. Helens Sentinel-Mist, February 28, 1936.
143. ibid.
144. Personal interview in Portland, September 11, 1937.
145. February 28, 1936.
146. Founding of this organization was the subject of articles by Eric W. Allen in Oregon Exchanges for November-December 1930, and in O. H. Q., December, 1937.
147. Carey, History of Oregon, n. 708.
148. Who 44 years later told the story in the Leader's anniversary number from which these facts are taken.
149. Story by Jasper V. Crawford in Oregon Exchanges, Dec. 1926.
150. ibid.