Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/418

Rh Then came the fight with the Herald. Both publishers, Murray and Belding, came to the conclusion that the field did not warrant two dailies, and in this opinion the business men, at a meeting held in the Presbyterian church, expressed their agreement. Finally, in an amicable understanding, October 19, 1921, Belding took a 60-day option to purchase the Evening Herald. If at the end of that period he was unable to complete the deal, the Record stock was to pass into Murray's hands. The Herald would continue as an evening daily, and the Record was to appear only on Sunday mornings. Everything was very sweet—too good, Klamath wise heads observed, to last. It didn't. Belding thought the matter over carefully, and early in December informed Murray he was not going through with the purchase. It took the courts several years to get the situation straightened out. Most of the Record plant had been moved over to the Herald building, and now Murray refused to return it to the Record. Belding had a hard time getting out a paper. Subscribers and advertisers were confused, some paying their bills to Murray, some to Belding. A midnight effort of Belding and a trucking party to move the Record material out of the Herald building met resistance on the part of Murray, who drove the invaders off the premises.

The Herald people now placed their plant under lock and key. The Record, armed with a court writ for the return of the equipment, were still defeated when Murray covered the deputy sheriff with an automatic and ordered him off the premises. The sheriff finally managed later to get the equipment segregated and got possession of the Record's property.

Suits and counter-suits followed, Murray insisting that the sheriff was acting unlawfully. Murray finally won the major suit involving the ownership of the Record, though losing some of the corollary cases. He changed the name of the Record to the Sun, after a year or so, issuing it Sundays.

In the middle of the fight over the Record (January 31, 1922) Mr. Murray announced sale of the Evening Herald to Fred Soule, who had been his city editor two years. Two years later Luther W. Rood, later with the Klamath News, was announced as having purchased the paper. Seven months later (November 15, 1924) Rood announced that Murray had taken back his stock. Then followed sale to Bruce Dennis, of the Inland Publishing Company, October 13, 1926. One of Mr. Dennis' first moves was to discontinue the Sunday Sun. Thus disappeared what had been the second eldest paper in the county.

Another interesting former competitor of the Klamath Falls Herald was the Klamath News, launched as a twice-a-week November 13, 1923, when its three founders—Nate Otterbein, Walter Stronach, and F. C. Nickle, saw in the expanding city and develop-