among the several editors. The present publisher is Wallace Iverson.
One of the type cases of the Jacksonville Times, which became part of the equipment of the Southern Oregonian, then of the Tribune and the Mail Tribune, had come from the old Table Rock Sentinel, which took over the equipment of the defunct Umpqua Gazette of Scottsburg in 1855. Bullet-marks on it indicated it had been used, very likely, as an improvised breastwork against the Indians in the fighting of that period.
Gold Hill.—This little Jackson county town is known chiefly as the place where the Lampmans, Ben Hur and Rex, got their journalistic start. It was on the Gold Hill News that Ben Lampman attracted the attention of the Oregonian by his nature paragraphs, poems, and general writing ability—and he left Gold Hill for Portland in 1916—to remain. Rex Lampman, another Gold Hill News man, worked on many newspapers, large and small, all over the country, doing editorial, features, columns, whatever was needed, until overtaken by ill health in the last few years.
But the News, established in 1897 by E. K. Churchill, was not Gold Hill's first paper. E. Everett Phipps had established the weekly Miner there in 1895. This was a four-page, seven-column paper, with two columns of ads on the front page. The subscription price was $1.50 a year. In the 1896 campaign it carried the People's Party (Populist) ticket at its masthead, including E. E. Phipps for county superintendent of schools. After a year or so he moved the paper to Medford and combined it with the Monitor as the Monitor-Miner.
The Lampman regime at Gold Hill was followed by that of Howard E. Wharton. He was followed, in turn, by C. J. Shorb, who added the News to his chain of small papers. Then came R. E. Blankenberg, who took over the Shorb chain, and the current editor is Wallace G. Iverson. Early editors, before the Lampmans, were John Conger, Charles Bros., F. W. Sears, John Hammersley, Lynn Purdin, Harry Murray.
Central Point.—S. A. Pattison, later of Condon and Heppner, founded Central Point's first paper, the Central Point Herald, a Thursday weekly, in 1906. It was an independent paper, four pages, five columns. The town's population was 322. Mr. Pattison ran the paper for several years.
After a hiatus of a good many years, an epidemic of journalism broke out in Central Point in 1928, when both the American, a Friday weekly, started by John B. Sheley, and the Star, a member of the C. J. Shorb chain, entered the restricted field. The Star withdrew in 1930. Ellis C. Gait edited the American that year. The present editor, A. E. Powell, old-time printer and editor, has been connected with the American for several years.
Rogue River. —This tiny little town in Jackson county also had
