There is also an item calling attention to the advisability of tree culture, and settlers are advised to investigate the claims of the Eucalyptus tree, which is stated to have been found very valuable in California. The paper asserts that nothing grows so fast as that tree, unless it be a farm mortgage bearing 1½ per cent interest per month, compounded. Trees in California, it declares, have made a growth of from sixty to seventy feet in ten years.
In the advertising columns of that first number of the Chronicle, we find some names well known throughout the history of Dayton.
The Columbia Hotel appears, of which the proprietors are announced as John Brining and Lane Gilliam. There are a number of cards of lawyers and physicians. Among the former we note T. H. Crawford, R. F. Sturdevant and M. A. Baker. Among the latter are T. C. Frary, J. H. Kennedy, H. R. Littlefield and W. H. Boyd, and the Homeopathists W. W. Day and J. P. VanDusen.
Of the business advertisements we observe the Standard Soap Works, conducted by W. W. Gardner and M. S. McQuarrie. J. A. Gavitt announces his saddle and harness supplies. W. P. Matzger appears as the producer of artistic photographs. D. B. Kimball, contractor, builder and undertaker, occupies space. There is quite an ad. for H. I. and E. A. Torrance as blacksmiths and wagon makers. Also J. Hutcheon and A. Nilsson call attention to their blacksmithing business.
D. C. Guernsey and H. H. Wolfe announce their grand opening for the spring trade of 1878. I. N. Arment announces his extensive stock of watches, clocks, cigars, tobacco, musical instruments, fishing tackle, etc.
Mr. R. E. Peabody, now the proprietor of the Chronicle, set up that first number of the paper and has been connected with it ever since, except during an absence of about a year in Montana. Mr. Peabody is without doubt the dean of all the newspaper men of Eastern Washington. He, in company with O. C. White, became proprietor in 1890, and in a short time the retirement of Mr. White left him the sole proprietor.
In 1908 Dr. Marcel Pietrzycki had an interest in the Chronicle for about four months, during which time he endeavored to advance some radical views on methods of taxation. The connection of the doctor with the paper was suddenly dropped when it became apparent to him that his views were not meeting with popular support.
Doubtless next to Mr. Peabody as a continuous factor in the newspaper field in this region is Al Ricardo. Mr. Ricardo was born in Mexico of Spanish parentage. He came to Walla Walla in 1885, and was connected with the Statesman for fifteen years. In 1900 he went to Dayton and became interested in two papers, the Courier, a democratic paper, and the Press, a populist paper. These papers were combined in 1900 by a company, but in the next year Mr. Ricardo acquired the entire control, which he has continued to the present.
The third of the newspapers is the Dispatch. This was founded in 1903 by Mr. Harris. The unique feature of it was the effort by Mr. Harris to maintain it as a daily. This was the only paper in the district covered by this history outside of Walla Walla, which carried on a daily issue. It soon appeared that the attempt was an undertaking beyond the resources of the field, and in 1905 Mr. Harris sold out to H. C. Benbow, a former resident of Pomeroy, where he had been active both as a teacher and a journalist. Mr. Benbow reduced the Dispatch to the weekly edition and has maintained it to the present on those lines. Its official name is Columbia County Dispatch, and it is now in its sixteenth volume.
The three Dayton papers are clean, well conducted, high-class weeklies, reflecting with accuracy the conditions of the community, as well as exercising a wholesome force in aiding to mobilize the rich resources which center at Dayton. As fulfilling with marked power their functions they may well be a source of pride to their proprietors and of approval to the citizenship.