Meanwhile the old Gazette, with its name changed to the Advocate (1898) had disappeared. The Chronicle moved into the Gazette building; and the Curreys, with the aid of George's father-in-law, A. C. Huntington, erected the first Observer building on the site of the present one. The Observer absorbed the Journal, and Lewis stopped publication of the Farmer. Then in 1903 the Observer switched from the morning to the evening field. The Eckleys soon afterward abandoned the evening daily Chronicle, continuing the weekly. This left the evening and weekly Observer and the weekly Chronicle occupying the La Grande field, and never since has the Observer had more than one competitor.
The Observer introduced machine composition with a No. 5 Mergenthaler in 1907. Later in the year Fred B. Currey sold his interest in the paper to George H. Currey, who again became sole publisher and editor. A. W. Nelson, reporter on the Observer, became city editor. After eight years, he purchased the Observer commercial printing equipment and established the Nelson Printing Company, which he continued until 1935.
In 1907 E. L. Eckley discontinued the Chronicle, and Molly K. Proebstel launched the La Grande Morning Star. In 1910 Bruce Dennis, then city editor of the Baker Herald, moved to La Grande and purchased the Observer. In the fall of 1911 he bought the Star and consolidated it with the Observer. Then O. L. Palmer, A. L. Lindbeck, and Clark Wood of Oklahoma (not of Weston) moved a newspaper plant from Oklahoma and started the Morning Messenger. They sold to the Observer after only a few months. Wood returned to Oklahoma, Palmer entered commercial printing, Lindbeck is now Salem correspondent for the Oregon Journal.
Bruce Dennis sold the Observer in 1914 to Clarke Leiter, Mrs. Leiter, and Don Meyers. Clarke Leiter had been city editor of the Oregonian. He installed the first web press in La Grande and added to the metropolitan aspect of the Observer. During the Leiter ownership Roy W. Gakeler and a printer, Hamilton, published a farmersweekly, the Alliance, which soon disappeared.
In 1918 Leiter sold the Observer back to Bruce Dennis and became news editor of the Portland Telegram under the Wheeler regime. He is now professor of journalism at the University of Illinois.
Dennis sold the paper again in 1925, this time to Frank B. Appleby and Harve Mathews. Appleby, who had been a successful publisher in Iowa, and Mathews developed the plant, erected the present building, and June 19, 1930, sold to P. R. Finlay, formerly of Iowa. Appleby and Mathews purchased the Ontario (Calif.) Report. Appleby died suddenly in the summer of 1936. Bruce Dennis, soon after selling the Observer, purchased the Klamath Falls Herald and News, selling them later to enter public-relations work.
On October 24, 1924, L. C. Binford started the weekly Eastern
