Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/322

Rh. When the county seat was moved to Pendleton in 1869, the paper suspended (87).

Pendleton.—Pendleton's first newspaper was the Pendletonian, started in 1871 and running for only a short time that year. The plant was destroyed by fire, and the only relic of this paper is a little old-style jobber still preserved, used as a weight, in the office of the East Oregonian (88).

Just what the new county seat Umatilla county, and the county itself, for that matter, did for an official newspaper between 1869, when the old Umatilla Advertiser is said to have suspended, and 1871, when the Pendletonian was launched, and again from the fiery demise of the Pendletonian until 1873, when M. H. Abbott of Baker started the Eastern Oregon Tribune, neither Gilbert nor William Parsons History of Umatilla County explains.

Two years later Abbott moved his plant to The Dalles, where he launched another Eastern Oregon Tribune.

This was 1875, and in the same year, on October 16, M. P. Bull started the one Umatilla county newspaper which has come right on down to the present without suspension or change of name — the East Oregonian. Bull ran a Democratic paper, but seemed to be in danger of falling into Republican hands. Therefore, October 9, 1877, a group of faithful Tilden followers formed the East Oregonian Publishing Co. and purchased the publication. The corporation was made up of J. H. Turner, S. Rothschild, Henry Bowman, J. M. Bentley, J. W. Bowman, G. W. Webb, and A. Jacobson.

The East Oregonian, which started with a patent ready-printed outside, had a good appearance from the start, according to Parsons (89). Among the advertisers were Lot Livermore and J. H. Raley, both memorable Pendleton names. In an early issue the subscribers were assured that they would not be cheated out of their money and that a bond would be given to guarantee them against any loss. This, no doubt, had reference to the chances sometimes taken in paying a year's subscription in advance for a paper that would fold up and quit at the end of the first few months.

The Republicans had their inning in the establishment of the Pendleton Independent almost immediately afterward—January 3, 1878—by Fred Page-Tustin and I. C. Disoway, with the backing of Lot Livermore, Pendleton business man.

Files of the early Pendleton papers for their first years are incomplete. Here's a brief glimpse at the Independent, which, like the others, was still a weekly, April 24, 1879, when Fred Page-Tustin (the hyphen was there; he dropped it later) & Co. were conducting the paper. It was a four-page seven-column publication, columns 2⅓ inches wide. First page was clear of advertising, but the whole paper contained 12 columns out of the 28. In the whole paper