it has had its days of glamour. Those were the days of its mining activity, the late 90's and the early 1900's. To one visiting Baker and Sumpter today, it would be hardly credible that 35 years ago Sumpter had as many daily and weekly newspapers as Baker. Though it has no paper now, in 1903 the town boasted two daily papers and one weekly. One of these, the Reporter, had been going since 1900, much of the time as a morning daily. The Reporter was founded by J. Nat Hudson, who later became a Portland lawyer (120). The first issue appeared December 5, 1900, and before long the paper, started as a hobby for a young lawyer, was taking most of his time. He charged 5 cents a week for a five-column, four-page daily. Hudson had conducted the weekly News before starting the Reporter. The News was launched in 1896 as an independent Republican paper. Walter C. Bignold was a later editor.
The evening paper was the Miner, with a weekly edition, started in 1899. The daily had been started in 1902, and T. G. Gwynne and J. W. Connella, editor and publisher respectively, were putting out a 12×22-inch paper for $5 a year; circulation, 800.
W. D. B. Dodson, former Oregonian cub and war correspondent in the Philippines, was editing the weekly Blue Mountain American, for Charles Lieberstein, publisher. This paper, started in 1896, was still in the directories in 1910, two years after all the others had disappeared. Dodson, later on the Oregon Journal, became executive vice-president of the Portland chamber of commerce, a position he holds today.
One of the several editors and publishers of the American was H. E. Hendryx, later of the Baker Herald, who had the paper in 1908. Still another was Edward Everett Young, 1900.
M. C. Athey, later a Portland newspaper man, was editor of another of the Sumpter journalistic ventures, the Chronicle, in 1900 and 1901.
COOS
Marshfield.—The Coos Bay Times is the result of a combination of two of its predecessors, the weekly and daily Coast Mail and the Marshfield Advertiser. The Times was launched in 1906, a morning daily, directed by a group of business men who wanted a stronger paper in the community. The Coos Bay Times Publishing Company was formed by J. M. Blake, Marshfield lawyer; C. D. Temple, George W. Kaufman, Gus W. Kramer, Alva Doll, and Andrew McClelland of Pueblo, Colo. All of these attended the first meeting of the corporation except McClelland. At the meeting, held in Blake's law office, Mr. Temple was chairman and Mr. Kaufman secretary.
