Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/309

300 gained of the early days of the Enterprise has been gleaned from files in the library of the University of Oregon.

After two years Dean sold the paper to William A. Priaulx, an other veteran, who has conducted newspapers in several other Oregon towns. In 1916 Mr. Priaulx brought in D. H. Talmadge as editor. May 16, 1918, Mr. Talmadge became owner as well as editor. He ran a bright and newsy six-column all-home-print newspaper. In July of the next year Mr. Talmadge sold out to Charles F. Ballard of Portland, who cut the size to five columns. In June 1921 Mr. Ballard sold to D. F. Dean, the founder. This veteran, in the meantime, however, had crippled his hands in logging camp work and in two months he sold to William H. Wheeler, already mentioned. Wheeler, 75 years old, had just completed a lease on the Brownsville Times. He was assisted in his work by his 74-year-old wife, who did the newsgathering and the bookkeeping. Together they raised the size of the paper back to six columns, and ran six pages, one-third of which was plate matter. They also raised the advertising rates from 12½ cents to 20 cents an inch and the subscription price to $2 ($1.50 to those who paid in advance).

Wheeler changed the name of the paper in 1925 to the Rural Enterprise and made it eight pages. In the meantime his first wife had died and No. 2 assisted him in making the Rural Enterprise more of a farm-community paper. He sold in 1927 to H. F. and A. A. Lake, who changed the name back to the Halsey Enterprise and in 1929 combined it with the Greater Oregon of Albany and moved it to the county seat. The field has since been re-occupied by the Halsey Journal, launched in 1932 by C. V. Averill & Son, formerly of Brownsville (now, 1939, known as the Halsey Review).

Scio.—Scio's first newspaper, the weekly News, could not boast even a Washington hand-press when it was born as the first newspaper in Linn county outside of Albany. The founder was Dr. H. H. King, and the first copy came off the old jobber February 3, 1870. The paper lasted less than a year, "folding up" January 11, 1871.

The little paper had begun to be a drain on the publisher's resources, he explained in his valedictory. "Besides being an expense, it detracts from other business," he said. "To our patrons who, notwithstanding the diminutiveness of our paper, have given us their support," he concluded, "we return our hearty thanks. And to those, though few indeed, who are yet in arrears, we ask you very kindly to remit the amount to us immediately; our financial affairs are very precarious just now."

Coll Van Cleve, founder of several early newspapers, founded the Scio Press in 1889. It was a Populist paper, four pages 18x24. Van Cleve charged his subscribers $2 a year and claimed a list of 600. The paper was sold within a year to T. L. Dugger, who published it for seven years.