Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/343

334 writeup. McMinnville, incorporated in 1876, it was related, had a population in 1886 of 1100, and the county's population was 10,000. The big booster writeup ended with the phrase "Oregon Forever. Old Yamhill against the world!"

The origin of this phrase is perhaps not generally known to Oregon people. William O. Powell, Yamhill county commissioner, explained it to this writer recently. The phrase, he said, is properly "Yamhill (not "old Yamhill") against the World." No antagonism is intended. Mr. Powell's uncle, W. S. Powell, was in charge of the Yamhill county exhibit of wheat at the Philadelphia Centennial exposition in 1876. On the exhibit when prepared for shipment he had stenciled the phrase "Yamhill against the world." The wheat exhibit won first prize at the exposition—and the phrase became a tradition.

E. L. E. White, Ireland's partner, used to publish a bit of his own verse in the paper occasionally. A note in the special edition gave the population of Lafayette at 600 and observed that the "interests of the place are well looked after by the Register, a weekly paper published by Westerfield Brothers." Newberg's population was given at 150.

White became the sole proprietor the next year and changed the paper to a semi-weekly. Graham Glass Jr. was the next owner (1888), and in 1890 F. H. Barnhart bought the paper and remained for nine years, selling in 1901 to D. I. Asbury, former Canyon City editor, who built up the paper both editorially and mechanically. The McMinnville News was established by O. G. Estes in 1901. It was a weekly paper, issued Wednesdays. Like the Reporter, it was Republican. Consolidation was natural with so many newspapers in the county, and in 1905 the News was merged with the Reporter under the present name, with Asbury of the Reporter and Estes of the News as publishers. C. C. Hammerly purchased the News-Reporter in 1908, enlarged it to eight pages and ran it for four years as a Thursday weekly.

Edgar Meresse, the present editor, came to the paper in 1911, when he and Reyn M. Rosensteel became owners. The News-Reporter Publishing Company was formed in 1931 to make over the newspaper and the printery of the Model Press; in this company Mr. Meresse, M. C. Brooks, and S. S. Dow are stockholders. The paper is now a six-column, eight-page paper.

H. L. Heath bought out H. F. Turner in May 1887. It was in this year that, after a bitter campaign, McMinnville succeeded in taking the county seat away from Lafayette, thereby virtually terminating Lafayette's importance as a newspaper field. Under Mr. Turner the Telephone had agitated the question of removal.

The issue of March 15 told of a Lafayette boycott of the Heath Dramatic Company for "hiring teams in McMinnville." The bitterness was not difficult to understand when the effect of the loss was paper