Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/150

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"Pontius Pilate's Interview with Jesus-Is This the Long Lost Report of Pilate Which Reveals the Astonishing Fact That the Savior's Crucifixion Would Have Been Prevented Had the Roman Reinforcements Arrived One Day Sooner?"

Mr. Irvine ran the paper for several years. It seems to have dropped out about 1905.

The decade of the 60's saw the launching of several papers in Salem, none of which has come down to the present. As was true throughout the era of handset newspapers—roughly, up to the late 90's—it was cheap and easy to start a newspaper in those days, and often the cheapest and easiest thing to do after a few months or so was to go away and leave it, if it could not be sold to some optimistic person with a few dollars and a crusading spirit or some political ax to whet. The Statesman was running when all of these ambitious youngsters took the field-and the Statesman is still going, albeit after periods of vicissitude. The others have gone down into unmarked journalistic graves.

Some of these papers were in pretty competent hands. First of the Statesman's competitors, chronologically, was the Oregon Arena, weekly, started in 1862 by C. B. Bellinger, Anthony Noltner, and Urban E. Hicks, each a newspaper man of ability and experience. Bellinger was editor, Noltner manager, and Hicks the printer. Hicks became editor in place of Bellinger in 1865.

The paper gave way in September of 1865 to the Democratic Review, a weekly launched by the same trio as had started the Arena. Noltner in the meantime had had some trying experiences in Eugene as the publisher of a Democratic weekly and when forced to give up the ghost there he moved the plant and name to Salem. The paper soon folded up, and Mr. Noltner is soon found starting another paper there.

This was the weekly Capital City Chronicle, the first issue of which appeared August 21, 1867. Noltner's partner was J. H. Upton, of unsurpassed ubiquity in Oregon journalism. His name appears as the founder of several Oregon newspapers—one could almost say many. The weekly ran to November, when it was succeeded by a daily edition, under the sole ownership and editorial direction of Upton.

Meanwhile the Salem Record was established by David Watson Craig as publisher and proprietor, with S. A. Clarke as editor. The paper was started as a daily, making its first appearance June 10, 1867. It was a four-column, four-page paper, issued every morning except Monday. Subscribers were to pay 25¢ a week to the carrier.