Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/631

Rh was managed so that they could arrive at some favorable hostelry. At each of these there was ample provision for the inner man, with plenty of horse feed; and, during the rainy season; a roaring fire in an ample fireplace furnished the opportunity to dry the saturated clothing of the tired traveler. The stage line changed all this... Travelers had no longer to provide themselves with a riding animal to make a day's journey. They had only to provide themselves with a ticket from the stage agent. . ..

The stage soon became an institution in the country that not only furnished a market for a large quantity of hay and grain, but was the only means of communication with the outside world. It soon became the custom of the whole male population of a station to meet the stage upon its arrival. At the blast of the driver's horn, all the business men rushed to receive their packages by mail or express; while the balance of the crowd waited to meet some friend or hear the latest news. The drivers were universally polite and obliging; and they seemed to defy the weather as if made of cast iron. . . . So strong a hold had the stage company upon the people of Southern Oregon that there was a sigh of regret even when they were superseded by the railroad company.

Richard Gill Montgomery is a grandson of J. K. Gill, pioneer Portland bookseller, and a great-grandson of Dr. W. Willson, who came out in 1837 to join the Jason Lee Mission, and Chloe A. Clark, who arrived on the Lausanne in 1840. His father, William A. Montgomery, is present head of the J. K. Gill Company.

He was born in Portland on February 13, 1897. He was graduated from Lincoln High School and, in 1919, from the University of California, later doing some work in the University of Oregon Medical School, with the intention of becoming a physician. He abandoned this plan and spent the year from 1921 to 1922 at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He has since been associated with the J. K. Gill Company, first as advertising manager and now as assistant manager. He was married in 1926 to