Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1 / Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties

by William Denison Lyman

In 1916 there was founded at Walla Walla, as a democratic campaign advocate for the re-election of President Wilson and Governor Lister, the Walla Walla Democrat. The managers were Charles Hill and Ernest W. Lanier. Russell Blankenship and W. D. Lyman were regular editorial contributors during the campaign. The triumph of the cause in the election of both the democratic President and democratic governor was a sufficient encouragement to Mr. Lanier to maintain the publication, and it is accordingly continued with vigor and success. At the present date Mr. Fred H. Butcher is associated with Mr. Lanier in the ownership and management of the Democrat. They maintain a well equipped printing establishment, in which they make a specialty of embossed printing.

The first issue of the Garden City Monitor (weekly) was dated October 10, 1908. This paper was established by Jesse Ferney to represent the interests of union labor in Walla Walla and Southeastern Washington. It has been the official organ of the Walla Walla Trades and Labor Council since its inception. In 1910 L. F. Clarke purchased a half interest in the paper. Ferney & Clarke, the publishers, have endeavored to make the paper progressive yet represent the conservative rather than the radical forces of union labor. A feature of the publication is an illustrated annual edition appearing on Friday before Labor Day each year.

One of the notable publications of Walla Walla, filling a field not occupied by any other, is the monthly Up-To-The Times Magazine. This valuable publication was founded in November, 1906, by R. C. MacLeod, and he has been editor and manager to the present date. Mr. MacLeod is entitled to great credit for his faith in the appreciation of a community which ordinarily would hardly be regarded as possessing sufficient population to justify a monthly magazine.

The aim of the magazine is to secure greater efficiency in education, agriculture, commercial, and industrial life. It also maintains a department devoted to historical and pioneer subjects. Today, the magazine, independent of any subsidy from any source, is the only publication of its kind in the interior Northwest. Its success has been due to the steady maintainance of high literary as well as business ideals.

The importance of Up-To-The-Times as a publication may be inferred from the fact that it has paid for printing to one firm of Walla Walla printers the sum of $40,000, and that its half tone cuts of local scenes and industrial and agricultural life have called for an expenditure with a Spokane engraving house of $5,000. The cuts accumulated during the years of its existence constitute by far the most extensive and valuable collection of pictorial matter in this section of the state.

The field of Up-To-The Times is some eight counties of Washington and Oregon, but it may be noted that it has subscribers and readers in many other parts of the United States and Europe. The staff of the magazine at the present date consists of Mr. MacLeod as editor and manager, and A. F. Alexander, as secretary and circulation manager. There are a number of regular correspondents and contributors in Walla Walla and elsewhere.

In addition to the publications in Walla Walla City, this is the proper place to name the pioneer papers of the other towns of the old county. We turn first of all to Waitsburg in respect to its leading paper.

WAITSBURG TIMES

This has been the leading paper and most of the time the only paper of Waitsburg for a period of thirty-nine years. This paper originated in a joint-stock company formed in 1878, a number of local business men feeling that the little community should have a weekly spokesman. The first editor was B. L. Land and the first issue appeared in March, 1878. A few months later the plant was leased to D. G. Edwards, and later to J. C. Swash. The following year C. W. Wheeler was induced to lease the plant and he liked the work so well that the next year—1880—he purchased the property from the stockholders. Under the influence of C. W. Wheeler the Times became an influence in the community and in Walla Walla and Columbia counties. The paper continued under the management of Mr. Wheeler until 1900 when he leased the plant to two of his sons—E. L. and Guy Wheeler—so that he might enjoy a well-earned rest from the grind of newspaper work and take up the work of traveling lecturer for the Woodmen of the World fraternity, that he might be able to fulfill his desire to travel in the West extensively. These two sons having been practically raised in a printing office, were able to take entire charge of the paper. A couple of years later E. L. Wheeler, the older son, purchased the paper and plant from his father, and has been sole editor and proprietor since.

The Times boasts of one of the finest country plants in the state at the present time, owning its brick building and being equipped with modern presses, two magazine intertype type-casting machines, electric and water power and all other conveniences of present day journalism.