Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/319

310 to 1888 by A. V. R. Snyder, lately city editor of The Dalles Times-Mountaineer.

The Press, a Friday weekly started in 1887, was edited and published through to 1892 by Irving McQuary.

The Pioneer, already mentioned, was launched by D. C. Ireland, who had sold the Astorian in 1880 and lost the money in a salmon cannery. It saw the light in 1887 as a morning paper competing with the Astorian. Editor in 1889 was C. J. Curtis. The paper was discontinued in 1891 after both Curtis and Oscar Dunbar had left Ireland and started those papers of their own, the Herald and Town Talk. The Herald ran weekly on Sunday until 1895, when its publication day was changed to Saturday. It was dead in 1907. Town Talk, first a Saturday weekly, then an evening paper (except Sunday) with a Friday weekly, ran until 1892, when its publisher, Dunbar, started the Budget.

D. C. Ireland appears again as an Astoria publisher with his Express, started in 1890 as a weekly and running for a year or so.

The Examiner, an evening paper, is credited by Ayer's directory to the Town Talk Printing and Publishing Co. Weekly, 1889, Friday; evening except Sunday 1891; not listed in 1895.

The Columbian, started as a weekly in 1881, became a morning daily in 1890, with L. G. Carpenter editor. It had dropped out of the field by 1892.

A daily which occupied the evening field for several years was the News, started in 1895. It was dead by 1907. The paper was independent in politics. It was credited by Ayer's in 1897 with 700 subscribers. In 1905, combined with the Herald, it was running daily except Monday as the News-Herald.

The Acorn, established in 1894 as a Friday Democratic weekly by Percy B. Sooly publisher with A. A. Cleveland editor. It ran for three years.

Then there was the Leader, a paper published in 1907 from the Owl Printery as an independent weekly. W. L. Thorndyke was editor.

Two of the latest publications to try the Astoria field were the Times, weekly, launched in 1922 by Owen Merrick and J. E. Myers, and the Morning Messenger, started in 1931, with Samuel T. Hopkins, formerly of the Vancouver (Wash.) Evening Columbian, as editor. The Times suspended in 1923 and the Messenger in 1934.

Astoria papers and editors have, rather consistently, enjoyed a high standing in Oregon journalism. Public service, or what the editor regarded as such, has loomed large in the editorial conscious ness. It was so right from the beginning. When D. C. Ireland started the Astorian in 1873 he had as one of his great aims promotion of a law compelling free pilotage into the Columbia. This took some