Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/251

242 Mr. Wimberly of the old Review, who retired from journalism in 1920, has been living in Los Angeles.

Some of the other Roseburg newspapers:

There was the little Roseburg Champion, started (and practically finished) May 31, 1903. On its very first issue an accident on the press pied the forms of hand-set type in a hopeless heap, and a smaller makeshift paper that Sunday morning was the result. The Champion was licked in the first round—and it didn't "come back."

Back in 1906 J. W. Strange & Son, W. D. Strange, now in charge of the News-Review mechanical department, started the Spokesman, an independent weekly, issued Thursdays, which ran for about two years.

The Roseburg Oracle, a job printer's publication, came and left in 1900.

Two papers were started in 1914—The Oregon Grange Bulletin, semi-monthly, which the veteran C. H. Bailey continues to edit at Roseburg for the State Grange, and the Tax Liberator, a monthly started by Robert E. Smith, outstanding authority on taxation, which was moved to Portland and there ran for many years.

Clyde S. Shaw, of Oakland, started the Roseburg Chieftain, a weekly paper, in 1931. continuing it until 1938, when he sold to Steen M. Johnson, formerly of the Sheridan Sun.

Bert G. Bates and associates launched the Roseburg Times as a twice-a-week in 1934, raised it to a daily the next year. But the field did not require two dailies, and the paper was suspended in 1936.

Oakland. —This little town served in the 80's as the starting-point for an outstanding newspaper man. In 1886 just after finishing a year or two in the University of Oregon, Charles H. Fisher provided himself with capital by teaching school for a few months, and then, with the help of an older brother, William H., a Roseburg merchant, purchased (1887) the Umpqua Herald, which Milton H. Tower had just started in Oakland, population not more than 400. After a few months of rustling items, setting them up, and pulling the lever of an old Washington hand-press, young Fisher suspended the paper, moved to Roseburg, and started another Umpqua Herald there. But that's a Roseburg story. Mr. Tower is now (1939) a resident of Portland.

The Oakland field was then taken over by the Enterprise, a Friday weekly published by Mr. Tower. The paper too suspended, after Thomas R. Gribbe had conducted it for a year (1888).

The Observer was next, established in 1890 as a Friday weekly by H. J. Richmond. It was gone before the call came for information for the newspaper directory of 1892.

Next came T. G. Ruth, with the Gazette, started in 1897 and