The start was made in the depths of the depression, and it took hard work and close figuring to keep the paper afloat during those difficult times.
At the beginning of 1937 Sheldon F. Sackett, publisher of the Marshfield Times and former managing editor of the Salem Statesman, took an option on the paper, moved in and streamlined the makeup, threw a lot of pep into the organization, then withdrew apparently through some hitch in the arrangements, the details of which were not made public.
Later in the year Fred F. Chitty, Olympia publisher, came to Eugene and became publisher of the News, Mr. Anderson remaining as managing editor. The present editor and publisher is Arthur W. Priaulx, former journalism student at the University of Oregon, ex-chairman of the Republican state central committee, who had published the Chiloquin Review for several years. Mr. Priaulx has re-formed the whole editorial and business organization. Business manager is R. Allen Bean, formerly of Freewater.
Springfield.—So far as present records go, W. F. (Frank) Gilstrap of Eugene and his late brother W. G. (Will) Gilstrap, formerly of Eugene, were the fathers of journalism in Springfield. Mr. Gilstrap, later for many years one of the publishers of the Eugene Register, started the old Messenger, four-page weekly issued on Fri days, in 1892. This continued for a little over a year, and the field was then unoccupied for three years.
The Gilstraps were persuaded to come to Springfield from Oakesdale, Wash., where they were publishing the weekly Sun, Frank Gilstrap's first journalistic venture, by a Lane County optimist who brought Springfield's future a good deal closer to 1893 than it actually turned out. The town was supported chiefly by the Wheeler sawmill, predecessor of the big Booth-Kelly plant and using the same mill-race for its logs. Development was retarded by the general depression and some unfavorable local conditions.
The paper printed nothing but local news, was set entirely by hand, and printed on a Washington hand-press, the same kind of machine used on Oregon's first newspaper nearly half a century before. The circulation was about 500. Will Gilstrap did the editorial and news work, and Frank attended to the mechanical and business ends.
Springfield was then without a paper until 1896, when John Kelly launched the Nonpareil, which he edited through '96 and '97. In 1898 he sold to J. F. Woods, who changed the name to the Springfield News in 1903. He sold the paper in 1909 to Lewis M. Beebe. Beebe carried the paper along for about five years.
In the meantime Charles P. Poole, who later became county coroner, undertook in 1913 the editorship of the Lane County Star, a Prohibition paper, for the Lane County Publishing Association.
