(later Saturday) edition started by Charles Alexander for Jackson and Cronise in November, 1920. This edition was largely devoted to the cultivation of literary talent in the Albany district, and it supplied an outlet for the early production of a good many promising writers. Alexander himself built up a nationwide reputation as a writer of fiction, short and long, as well as feature articles.
When the paper was merged with the Herald as the Democrat-Herald in 1925, Alexander's section was moved to the Saturday issue. The last issue of this special literary section of the Saturday paper appeared June 6, 1931, in the depression period.
The Herald's career covered an even half-century.
The Albany Sunday Telescope was set up in 1891 by C. W. Watts publisher. The paper was four pages 13×18 inches. The circulation was reported at 850. The Telescope was soon dismounted.
The middle nineties, characterized by a flood of Populist and free-silver papers throughout the West, saw several started in Albany. The Populist, a Wednesday weekly, ran from 1893 through the 1896 campaign. The publisher was anonymously listed as the Populist Publishing Co. The People's Press, a Socialist organ, was issued Fridays by A. D. Hale editor and publisher from 1893 to 1903. A sworn circulation of 1500 was advertised.
The Oregon Silver Imprint, established in 1896 as a Wednesday weekly by Finch & Campbell, was edited the next year by J. A. Finch alone, and the next year, its last, by Johnston S. Smith. Another publication launched by Finch, the Bell, failed to last, and Finch moved to Portland. There he became a lawyer. His career ended in Salem, where he was dropped through a trap for shooting to death a fellow-member of the bar.
Another short-lived paper was the Argus, published and run for a short time in 1906 by Paul B. Johnston. Still another that failed to make the grade was the Albany Citizen, published in 1910 by Ethen N. Kibbey editor and Paul S. Ware business manager. It lasted only a few months.[1]
Trade and class publications appeared and disappeared through the years. Among these were the Oregon Good Templar, started in 1871, M. C. George editor; the Oregon Granger, 1875, A. S. Mercer editor; Oregon Cultivator, agricultural organ, edited from 1873 to 1876 by N. W. Garretson.
The Western Stamp Collector, a twice-a-week journal of nationwide circulation, established in Mill City, Marion county, in 1932 as a successor to the Mill City Logue, a struggling weekly almost dead from the depression, was moved to Albany in August 1935, leaving Mill City without a publication. The town had, as a matter of fact, been without a local newspaper for three years, since the Stamp Collector succeeded the Mill City Logue.
Mr. and Mrs. Al Van Dahl, both of them linotypers on the
- ↑ Fred P. Nutting in 60th anniversary number of the Albany Democrat-Herald, November, 1925.
