Mr. Conner sold to A. Clifford Gage, later publisher of the Angora Journal and the Portland Spectator, June 17, 1904. In December of the same year Mr. Gage sold to a corporation made up of Herbert Eakin, banker; O. O. Veatch, merchant; F. J. Hard, mining promoter, and Frank Rosenburg, secretary of the commercial club. The paper became a Tuesday-Friday semi-weekly in 1905 under the title Lane County Leader.
Horace Mann had established the Messenger, a Friday weekly, in 1897. Two years later he sold to C. J. Howard, who changed the name to the Bohemia Nugget. Starting as "Independent," it became Republican the next year (according to announcement in Ayer's Directory). Mr. Hard, manager of the Leader, was at the same time owner of the Nugget—a fact not publicly known. Mr. Howard is living at Dorena, a short distance from Cottage Grove, serving as postmaster. From now on editors and publishers came and went fast.
July 18, 1901, T. H. Supple of Portland became associated with Howard but sold his interest back the next February, and April 18, 1902, Lee Henry took an interest with Howard. In the next August Henry bought Howard out, but in November Howard again took over the paper. January 2, 1903, Rev. Barton C. V. Brown became associated with Howard. As late as April 8, 1929, a news item told of Mr. Brown's opening a meeting of Death Valley pioneers at Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley, California. November 27, 1903, A. P. Bettersworth appeared as sole owner, although the paper actually was owned by C. J. Hurd. Bettersworth lasted only a few weeks, when he was succeeded by Col. Warner A. Root. Elbert Bede observes that the early papers in the town were strong for colonels and preachers. The Bohemia Nugget Publishing Company was mastheaded as the publisher.
J. McKean Fisher was editor of the Nugget during 1906, and W. C. Conner and Joe DuBruille were publishers of the Leader in 1907. The two papers were consolidated late in 1907, when Conner and DuBruille bought the Nugget and let the name die.
In 1905, having disposed of his interest in the Leader to Mr. Hard, C. J. Howard established a paper known as the Western Oregon. D. M. C. Gault, veteran publisher, now deceased, who also served a term as Cottage Grove postmaster, was editor of the paper in 1907, with Howard as manager. March 19, 1908, Mr. Howard became sole owner. July 31 of the same year D. W. and I. S. Bath became the owners. I. S. Bath later became a publisher at Goldendale, Washington.
It was Lew A. Cates, old-time Oregon newspaper man and owner at one time or another of several Oregon newspapers, who named the Sentinel, legatee and survivor of a long chain of papers. He
