Appointment of E. J. Adams as receiver for the Guard was announced January 28, 1916, and Mr. Adams, later private secretary to Senator Stanfield and then an attache of the Federal Trade Commission, conducted the paper for nearly three months. The week of April 1-5 he permitted the students of the new School of Journalism of the University of Oregon to direct the publication of the paper, under the eye of Eric W. Allen, then in his fourth year at the head of the University's work in journalism.
Commenting on the financial fate of the paper, in the issue of January 29, Mr. Adams called it "a case of overconfidence in the immediate future . . . wrecked by a European submarine in the sea of business depression. . . ."
In the issue of April 11, 1916, announcement was made of the purchase of the paper by Charles H. Fisher and J. E. Shelton. The Guard Printing Co. was formed, with Fisher as president and Shelton as editor and manager. Mr. Fisher continued in Salem as active editor-publisher of the Capital Journal. Five years later he returned to Eugene, having sold the Salem paper to George Putnam, recently from Medford. Three years later, April 5, 1924, Mr. Fisher died, and the paper was sold within a few months to Paul R. Kelty, night editor of the Morning Oregonian of Portland, who became editor and associated with him as manager his son, Eugene S. Kelty.
After three years the Keltys sold (March 1, 1927) to Alton F. Baker, formerly of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Mr. Baker, son of Elbert H. Baker, for many years publisher of the Cleveland paper, and brother of Frank S. Baker, Tacoma (Wash.) publisher, brought with him from Cleveland the Plain Dealer's star reporter, William M. Tugman, as managing editor. This effective set-up has persisted to the date of this writing.
November 17, 1930, Mr. Baker purchased the Eugene Register, which had recently moved over into the evening field with the Guard, and consolidated the papers as the Register-Guard. Several of the employees of the Register, including Horace Burnett, veteran city editor, who knows everybody in Lane county, were taken over into the new organization.
Since the consolidation the paper has grown steadily in strength and influence. Both Mr. Baker and Mr. Tugman are called on for a heavy share of their time in connection with the promotion of Eugene's commercial, civic, and educational interests.
A predecessor of the Guard was the Oregon State Journal, itself an offshoot of an earlier paper, the State Republican. These papers bring in some of the most interesting names in Eugene and Oregon journalism.
The State Republican was started January 1, 1862, by Shaw & Davis, using the plant of the defunct People's Press. Hilyard Shaw was one of the earliest pioneers of Eugene and interested in keeping
