EARLY HISTORY OF TWO PROMINENT OREGON COUNTRY PAPERS
[It has been the hope of OREgoN EXCHANgES to do it: share in assembling material on the newspaper history of Oregon. A general invitation has been and is given to newspapermen in the various towns of the state to write the history of journalism in their respective towns. In this issue are printed, in somewhat condensed form, the history of two Oregon paper-s—the St. Heee‘a Mist, now published by S. C. Morton, former president of the Oregon Newspaper Conference, and the Scio Tribune, published by McAdoo 8: McAdoo. The history of the Mist is the work of E. H. Flagg, veteran Oregon editor, now in charge of the Warrenton News, who formerly published the Illist. Mr. Flugg wrote the history at the request of Mr. Morton, who published it on the occasion of the paper’s forty-first anniversary. The Scio history was published in the Christmas number of the Tribune. OREGoN Excrumu1:s suggests that every newspaper in the state compile its history, print it on its next birthday and send a marked copy to this publication.]
AN INVESTIGATION of the files of papers that have been printed in Scio show that the first newspaper printed here was edited and published by Dr. H. H. King, in 1870. His paper was a 4-column 4-page sheet, with
the paper, plant and everything to L. L. Gooding, who sold the plant to L. W. Charles a few weeks later.
In the fall of 1914 a number of mer chants and other interested parties wrote to Mr. Dugger, at Sweet Home, and asked
pages about 9 inches wide by 12 inches
him to return.
long.
sell the News, so Dugger set up the Tribune in opposition to him, and in the
At that time it was one of the few
papers published in Oregon, the others being principally the Oregonian, at Port land, the Statesman at Salem, and papers at Oregon City and Astoria. At that time there was no paper in Albany. After about a year and a half, or in the fall
of 1871, Mr. King discontinued publica tion. Again in 1889, Col.
Van
Cleave,
a
veteran newspaper man, came to Scio and established the Scio Press, which he
published for a little over a year. In July, 1890, he sold the paper and plant to T. L. Dugger, who published the Press until 1897, when he sold the plant to Albert Cole and Roy Gill. Cole & Gill published the Santiam News for a few months, then suspended publication and left town. During the fall of 1898 Ira Phelps purchased the
plant and revived the News.
Mr. Phelps
fall of 1915 the two plants were merged into one paper under the name Scio Trib
une. Tom Dugger held the
In 1904 T. L. Dugger returned to Scio and again purchased the News, taking immediate possession. He continued to hold the -editorial pen until during the summer of 1912, at which time he sold
editorial
pen
from then until the first of September, 1921, when the plant was sold to I. V. and W. F. McAdoo, the present pub lishers. The newspaper history of Scio is a
great deal like that of other cities of this size. Editors come and go, some giving the people an extra good paper, others a comparatively poor one, one remaining throughout a lifetime, others only a few weeks. It is with a great deal of pleasure that the present publishers offer to their sub
scribers and advertisers this paper, the first paper of more than eight pages ever printed in Scio.
carried on publication of the News for about five years, when he became dis satisfied and sold the plant to Don
Humphrey.
Mr. Charles refused to
St. Helens
' l/list
The first paper published in Columbia county was started by Enoch G. Adams, a veteran of the civil war, and was pub lished at his home on Frogmore, a prom
ontory at the junction of Frogmore slough and Willamette slough.
[13]
Major Adams, as
