Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/437

 Ontario in 1937 by Elmo E. Smith. He continues as publisher (1939), with William Robinson, formerly of Newberg, as editor.

One of the first "columns" conducted by a woman on a weekly paper was started on the Argus January 1, 1931, by Mrs. Dottie Crummett Edwards, already an experienced newspaper woman though young in years. It was followed by a poets' corner established by Lulu Piper Aiken in 1934. Mrs. Aiken not only has developed regional interest in Oregon poetry and encouraged a number of young writers but has herself achieved recognition as a rising poet, achieving frequent publication.

The "Alaska invasion" of promoters from the Far North gave Vale the impetus which resulted in the founding of the Malheur Enterprise at Vale, the first number of which appeared November 20, 1909.

Major L. H. French, Denny Brogan, and others who had been promoting mining schemes in the sub-Arctic arrived in the town in 1906 and proceeded to set things going. Major French, pioneer extraordinary, ex-circus master, and related by marriage to the Studebaker wagon-automobile family, promoted everything from irrigation projects to prizefights, narrowly missing landing the Jeffries-Johnson battle in 1910.

Major French was generally regarded as the financial backer of the Enterprise, the first manager of which was B. M. Stone and the first editor John J. McGrath, himself an Alaskan who had done considerable newspaper work in the Far North and a little in Seattle just before going to Vale. The paper was not misnamed; it was "enterprising" in every respect. Screaming headlines, red-hot editorials, and a general booster spirit, which set out to make Vale another Chicago, characterized the new paper. Oil wells and irrigation projects were other factors which, as the promoters saw it, were to be the making of Vale. The town did prosper, but not like that.

In November 1912 John Rigby succeeded Stone in charge of the Enterprise. In a recent history of the newspaper Arthur H. Bone, present publisher, gives Rigby a large share of the credit for stirring up the public opinion which assured the success of the Warm Springs irrigation project.

John E. Roberts purchased the paper in July 1915 and carried it on until his death on August 1 of the next year. His two sons, Homer and Rolla, continued with the mechanical department and Mr. Rigby again took charge of the paper. Homer later became a reporter on the Corvallis Gazette-Times and the Eugene Guard in the 1920's and at the time of his sudden death in 1933 had recently finished covering the California legislature for the United Press.

George Huntington Currey, active in Oregon journalism, purchased the paper from Rigby in 1917, trading it to Bruce Dennis in June 1920 for the Baker Herald. Dennis, then publisher also of the