Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/439

 number appeared June 8, 1888, with C. E. Wilson & Co. as publisher and J. E. Edwards, a member of the company, as editor. The name is taken from the famous lighthouse on Tillamook head. It was issued weekly on Friday. The subscription price was $1.50.

An early change brought in Theodore Steinhilber as editor and publisher in 1889.

In August of that year W. F. D. Jones became associated with B. C. Lamb in the publication of the Headlight. In 1891 Jones and Lamb both left the paper, Jones to engage in newspaper work in Astoria. Thomas Coates, who is still living in Tillamook, conducted the paper for a year after Lamb disposed of his interest. The next year the Tillamook Headlight Company was formed with Mr. Jones president, and he edited the paper until the coming of Fred C. Baker in 1896. Mr. Jones died in California January 8, 1937, aged 73, after a long career in California journalism.

The longest continuous control of the Headlight was that of Mr. Baker, native Englishman, who spent more than a quarter of a century in charge. Mr. Baker continued in active direction of the paper until 1923, when he sold to Leslie Harrison.

In 1925 Mr. Baker returned for a short time to the editorship of the Headlight. The next two years the paper was conducted by Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Mallery, followed by Roy Blodgett. Then, in 1928, Irl S. McSherry and George E. Martin, formerly of the McMinnville Telephone Register, purchased the paper. The next owners were Thomas Walpole and D. A. DeCook, who were in charge of the paper when consolidation was effected with the Herald in 1934.

Fred C. Baker had learned the printer's trade in England. Coming to America in 1888, he went to work in the Oregonian composing-room. For three years in the middle 90's he published the Troutdale Champion. He is remembered mostly for his capable editorship of the Headlight. Mr. Baker was treasurer of the state press association in 1898 and 1899 and vice-president of the Oregon State Editorial Association in 1920. He died in June 1932, aged 77, after having spent about two years as a partner of A. M. Byrd in the Garibaldi News.

The Western Watchtower, second to the Headlight in chronology, was started in 1889 as a Saturday weekly of Republican politics. For about a year the paper ran under the joint ownership of J. L. Johnson and Cato Sullivan. It appears to have died within two years, and the plant was acquired in 1892 by John J. Stoddard and A. G. Reynolds, photographer, who then started the Tillamook Advocate, an independent weekly issued on Wednesdays. In 1894 the paper had become Republican, with T. B. Handley editor. The name was changed to the Herald in 1896 by R. M. Watson, who had purchased the Advocate from George A. Edmunds a short time previously.

The Herald's original plant, as recalled by Rollie W. Watson,