This company was under the leadership of Elisha P. Ferry, then Surveyor-General, who became Territorial Governor in 1873, and the first Governor of the State of Washington in 1889.
The Daily Courier made its first appearance January 2, 1872, and the weekly later in the week. During that year H. G. Struve, then practicing his profession in Olympia, did much editorial work, while the late Fred Prosch had charge of the mechanical department. In December C. B. Bagley became business manager and city editor, and in June, 1873, he bought the office and newspaper. The daily was discontinued at the close of 1874. Mr. Bagley was appointed Territorial Printer in 1873, and held that position for ten years. He continued the Weekly Courier until late in 1884, when he sold out to Thomas H. Cavanaugh, who changed the name of the paper to the Partisan.
During the period between 1873 and 1883 Olympia had four weekly newspapers most of the time, while several small dailies appeared from time to time, but never for more than a few months. Until the Seattle papers began to take telegraphic dispatches the Olympia papers had most of their circulation at Seattle and points further down Sound, but this gradually ceased, and long before the admission of the state their patronage had become almost wholly local in character.
Steilacoom, until about 1880, when Tacoma began its second growth, was a favorite field for newspaper ventures. Mr. Charles Prosch held the field there nearly six years, much longer than anyone else, and while some of his early contemporaries manifested more vigor and belligerency in their editorial columns, none of them gave so much local news or possessed one half the literary merit of the Herald.
Francis H. Cook also moved from Olympia to Tacoma, with a newspaper plant, on which he had for a time published the Echo. This paper was started in 1868 by Randall H. Hewitt, and that year in its office the writer began work as a printer. James E. Whitworth, now of Seattle, Nathan S. Porter, of Olympia, and Ike M. Hall worked together in that office. Hundreds of the older residents of Seattle remember Judge Hall, who died here about ten years ago. Early in 1869 C. B. Bagley became the owner and publisher of the Echo for about a year. Like most of its fellows, it underwent all manner of changes of ownership, of form and place of publication during an erratic career of about eight years.
During the eight or ten years following the founding of Tacoma in 1873, many attempts were made to establish newspapers there, but most of them were far from profitable to their backers. In fact, it has been frequently reported that their more pretentious successors have not been far from financial stress.
The Beacon was brought from Kalama by Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, which had been the organ of the Northern Pacific Railroad. This soon died. In 1880 there started the North Pacific Coast, but its life was brief.
R. F. Radebaugh, of San Francisco, and H. C. Patrick, of Sacramento, came to Tacoma and started the Weekly Ledger April 23, 1880. April 7, 1883, the Daily Ledger was started, and both the weekly and daily are still appearing regularly, having long passed the usual period that has been fatal to so many papers on Puget Sound.
Mr. Patrick left the Ledger in 1882 and bought the Pierce County News, which had been started August 10, 1881, by George W. Mattice. Mr. Patrick changed the name to Tacoma News, and it appeared as a weekly paper until September 15, 1883, when he started the Daily News. It continues to occupy the evening field, while the Ledger retains the morning field.
The limits of this article do not permit mention of many papers which have appeared from time to time in every town and almost every village. In the writer's collection there are not less than one hundred publications, daily, weekly, or monthly, that have sprung into life since 1852. Most of them are forgotten in the communities where they appeared. Success has come to but here and there one.