Of the 24 columns in the Oregonian's first issue, advertising occupied 6½ columns, including 2½ columns of land laws. One of the first ads in the Oregonian was a one-inch card for King, Fuller & Co.'s tannery. Amos N. King, who lived right down into the twentieth century, told about this ad in 1900, in time to get a notice in the semi-centennial edition. He told, incidentally, also a story of raising a 5½-pound potato, which, after having refused to sell it for $5, he gave to Editor Dryer, "the man who had the boldness to come out in the wilderness and print a paper." Dryer glassed it and sent it to the states, where it beat all the potatoes. Ultimately, however, "covering too much territory," the record-breaking tuber ran into a bigger one in England.
Among the advertisers was James King of William, later famous in the newspaper field but at that time conducting a banking house in San Francisco, at Montgomery and Commercial streets. Another ad was one inserted by James L. Loring for Boots, Shoes and Brogans. Others advertising were the Twice-a-Week Steam Packet between Astoria and the Willamette, A. F. Dennison, agent; the bark Ann Smith, between Portland and San Francisco, Couch & Co., agents; the Regular line between Portland and Oregon City, the Skookum Chuck and the Tumwater, Couch & Co., agents, Portland; Allan, McKinley & Co., Oregon City, advertising Pickles, French Beans, Cauliflower, Piccalili, Gherkins, Onions, and Mexican Pickles; Stephen Coffin, with a lot of little separate ads calling attention to brushes, mill irons, medicine chests, Manilla sugar, cords, tassels and pulleys for window shades, books and stationery, brass clocks, writing-paper, storage; also articles for the Indian trade, such as beads, hairpins, medals, trinkets, and jewelry—all handled by the many-sided commission merchant, Mr. Coffin, who was one of the founders of both the town and the paper; Couch & Co. (John H. Couch, Benjamin Stark), bankers; Lemuel Bills, pump and acquiduct builders— cash paid for tallow; George H. Flanders, whole sale and retail merchant; H. W. Corbett, general store; Capt. C. H. Lewis (Allen & Lewis), general store; A. M. and L. M. Starr, stove and tin store; Capt. Z. C. Norton, mercantile and commission business; Thomas Pritchard, grocery; A. M. Barnes, general; G. W. Vaughan, hardware man (who built the first flour mill); Northrup, Simonds general store; Herman Smith, general store; Lucien Snow, dry goods; K. W. Snell, drug store and physicians and surgeons; Patrick Raleigh, general; Frazer and Jewett, general.
Several of these pioneer advertisers have been immortalized in the Portland of later days; e. g., by Couch, Corbett, Stark, Flanders, Vaughan streets. James King of William gained his immortal fame in another way; becoming editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, he was killed by political enemies, Casey and Carey, who were lynched (1855).
