The Oregon Daily Emerald is an independent newspaper, produced by students at the University of Oregon. Issues from 1909-1952 are now available to view on our website. Starting in 1909 the paper was named the Oregon Emerald and ran twice a week until 1920 when it was renamed the Oregon Daily Emerald and published five days a week during the fall, winter, and spring terms. The Oregon Emerald (1909-1920) is available here and the Oregon Daily Emerald has been digitized through 1952 and is available here. The entire archive will be digitized and online soon! 

The start of the fall term at U of O was chronicled each year in the Emerald. In September 1933, amidst news about fall registration, sports, and the state board of higher education, one columnist took the time to explain campus slang to incoming freshmen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World War II affected most aspects of life on campus, including the Emerald. With most college-age men in the armed forces, women took over most positions on the Emerald staff, going from a significant minority to a comfortable majority. In October of 1943, the Emerald reported that fall registration dropped 35% from 1942 and women made up 83% of the student body.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some things never change, football was always a prominent feature of back-to-school coverage. In September 1948 the Emerald ran this photo of right guard Sam Nevilis  as part of its analysis of the Ducks’ preparedness for their season opener against Santa Barbara. 

The Oregon Emerald and the Oregon Daily Emerald are a valuable resource for exploring the history of U of O and we are excited that it is available on our website and to digitize the remainder of the archive soon! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog post compiled and edited by Allia Service, University of Oregon undergraduate student and Libraries student employee.

Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor and a partnership with the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN) and the Oregon Historical Society Library, Just Out: “Oregon’s lesbian and gay newsmagazine” is now available to view on our website.  

Just Out was published and distributed for free twice a month in Portland, Oregon from 1983–2013 and we have issues available from 1983-2011. We’d like to say a special thank you to the former editors of Just Out, Marty Davis and Jonathan Kipp, for allowing us to digitize and make this great publication open access! 

Just Out covered news surrounding the LGBTQ community in the Pacific Northwest. It had a distinct editorial voice and provided a place for LGBTQ people to discuss issues that mattered to them without the censorship of traditional newsrooms. Reading Just Out today gives you a unique look at the LGBTQ community in Portland, and Oregon’s slow path toward acceptance.  

Just Out had iconic illustrated covers like this issue from July 6th 1984 about military homophobia, and this issue from January 1st 1987 about spirituality:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along with its substantive articles covering everything from local politics, to HIV/AIDS response to national news, Just Out maintained an active Letters page. Sometimes the letters were from disgruntled, homophobic readers (in which case the next issue would be full of sometimes snarky, sometimes heartfelt responses). Other times the letters were from Queer people in Portland organizing events or looking for community. The letters were as diverse as the magazine itself: serious, funny, broad or extremely local to Portland. Many letters focused on AIDS, either people’s response to proposed policies, activism, scientific breakthroughs, or simply how they were coping with an AIDS diagnosis. As the world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, we can look back on these letters and learn how the Queer community supported each other through a past epidemic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a much lighter note, here’s a letter encouraging Pope John Paul II to stay away from San Francisco:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just Out is a rich resource for researching Portland’s Queer community between 1983 and 2013 and we are excited that we were able to digitize it and make it available on our website.  

Blog post compiled and edited by Allia Service, University of Oregon undergraduate student and Libraries student employee

Please welcome The Turner Tribune to Historic Oregon Newspapers!

The City of Turner, Oregon, was incorporated in 1905 and by 1920 publisher Pearl P. Hassler had already established a newspaper for this new Marion County municipality. Each Thursday, The Turner Tribune brought four (or more!) pages of world, national, state, and local happenings to Turner’s nearly 300 residents.

The oldest issue of the Turner Tribune in Historic Oregon Newspaper’s database was published on August 18, 1921; the most recent issue is from July 30, 1931. That’s ten whole years of news captured in 456 issues of the Turner Tribune.

Many thanks to the organization, Yesterday in Turner, for sponsoring this digitization.

 

Thanks to the generosity of the Dallas Public Library we have been able to add more issues from the Polk County Observer to our digitized collection! This new content ranges from April 7, 1888, when the Polk County Observer printed its very first paper for distribution to the general population, to February 15, 1889. The addition of this new content completes our collection of newspapers for this title.

The Polk County Observer served all of Polk County and its main recipients resided in Monmouth, Dallas and Independence, Oregon. However, the newspaper covered international, national, statewide, and local news.

International news covered by the Polk County Observer varied greatly. From an interesting law in Russia outlawing the use of exclamation points in newspapers, to news about beet sugar factories in Europe!

National news covered by this newspaper was just as interesting. As evidenced in the snippet from the newspaper located to the left, which reports of a one pound, one year old baby living healthily in Minnesota. A child of such size living for so long during this time period is remarkable!

Statewide news captured by the Polk County Observer was just as fascinating. For example, there is a report of a man from Douglas County, Oregon who killed an eagle with a seven foot span! Located just a few lines down is an announcement that patents for a car heater and for an apparatus to heat cars were awarded to two Oregonian men.

Finally, the local news reported by the Polk County Observer highlighted what life was like in the area, as well as any excitement that happened in the community, such as a runaway train.

To learn more about Polk County and see more from Polk County Observer, please feel free to browse other issues from this title found on our website. Thanks to optical character recognition, this title along with all other titles located on our website, can easily be browsed or searched using keywords. In addition to this, all of our content can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG and saved for future reference or research.

Thanks to the generosity of the Dallas Public Library, new content is now available! The Falls City News has been digitized and is currently available on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website.

The new content for the Falls City News spans from August 4, 1909 to June 27, 1918. According to the United States Decennial Census, during this time period the population of the town was just under 1000 people. Small glimpses of small town life in Falls City, Oregon can be seen throughout this newspaper. For example, check out these snippets from the newspaper found below:

To learn more about Falls City and see more from Falls City News, please feel free to browse other issues from this title found on our website. Thanks to optical character recognition, this title along with all other titles located on our website, can easily be browsed or searched using keywords. In addition to this, all of our content can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG and saved for future reference or research. Take advantage of these free public services offered by the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program!

References:

“Census of Population and Housing” United State Census Bureau. The United States Government, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/volume-1/41084484v1ch5.pdf. Accessed 17 Apr. 2023.

We were recently able to digitize and add more newspapers from Deschutes County, Oregon! Thanks to the generosity of the Deschutes County Historical Society, we’ve added issues from The Deschutes Echo, La Pine Inter-Mountain, Laidlaw Chronicle, and Redmond Spokesman. The Deschutes Public Library has also provided support, allowing us to also digitize issues of the Abbot Engineer. Check out this recent article in the Bend Bulletin for more behind-the-scenes details about how this project came to be. Of all the issues added, The Deschutes Echo covers the earliest period going back to 1902, while the Abbot Engineer covers the latest period from 1943 to 1944.

 

The Deschutes Echo technically predates Deschutes County, as it was published in the town of Deschutes, a part of Crook County at that time. It had a relatively short run, starting in June of 1902 and going until 1904, at which point it merged with the Bend Bulletin. Before this consolidation, though, there was a little bit of a rivalry between the two newspapers, with The Deschutes Echo on at least one occasion accusing the Bend Bulletin of misleading its readers.

In 1905, not long after those two newspapers merged, the Laidlaw Chronicle was founded in the nearby town of Laidlaw, later known as Tumalo. This weekly paper was edited and published by A.P. Donohue, who anticipated that Laidlaw would be a growing town. Unfortunately, Bend would be the one to reap the benefit of a nearby railroad in helping it grow. Eventually, publication of the paper was stopped in 1911, though our coverage only goes to 1908.

Around this time in 1911, E.N. Hurd created the La Pine Inter-Mountain. At the time, La Pine was a town of only 40 people, but this modest newspaper still manage to reach a circulation of over 600 by being, as its tagline said, “the only newspaper within an area of a thousand square miles.” It balanced news from the surrounding areas with tidbits about locals in La Pine and neighboring towns. If you wanted to know what was going on with your neighbor down the road, this was like reading a version of today’s Facebook news feed back then. This kept the paper running until 1934.

Of this batch of newspapers, the Redmond Spokesman is the only one still in publication today. It was started in 1910, and the issues made available here go through 1914. During this time, the paper had two in-town competitors: Oregon Hub and the Redmond Enterprise. The Spokesman soon bought both of them out in 1914, allowing it to continue to grow into the newspaper it is today. However, it almost never made it past 1912 due to a fire that took out their publishing plant. Thanks to help from the Oregon Hub and the Bend Bulletin, though, they were able to release a special “Fire Edition” and continue printing until their new equipment came in.

The final paper in this batch is the Abbot Engineer, which is unique in that it was the newspaper for the combat engineers training at Camp Abbot, located in what is Sunriver today. The Engineer offers great insight into the lives of G.I.s in the camp and is a great resource for those researching World War II. The paper’s run ended with the close of the camp and the move of the forces to Fort Lewis.

 

To find out about other aspects of life in central Oregon in the early 1900s, browse through issues of each of these newspapers on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. Each issue of The Deschutes Echo, Laidlaw Chronicle, La Pine Inter-Mountain, Redmond Spokesman, and Abbot Engineer can be browsed and searched by keyword, thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology.

References:

George S. Turbull. History of Oregon Newspapers. Binfords & Mort Publishers, Portland, Oregon. 1939.

The Historic Oregon Newspaper Program (ODNP) has recently been able to add exciting new content from Cascade Locks, Oregon. Now available online, issues from March 3, 1939 to September 1, 1939 of the Cascade Locks Chronicle and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle are ready for your viewing pleasure! Covering the period directly after the construction of the Bonneville Dam, this newly added content is a great addition to our already digitized issues of The Dam Chronicle and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle, earlier papers published in Cascade Locks. This project was made possible by sponsorship from the Hood River Library.

More than just a wonderful addition to our previously digitized issues of the Bonneville Dam Chronicle, the Cascade Locks Chronicle and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle is actually continuation of that paper under a new name! An article published on March 3, 1939 explains that because the construction of the Bonneville Dam had reached its completion, the paper saw it fit to change its name to the Cascade Locks Chronicle, the town in which it was published.

The addition of the Cascade Locks Chronicle and The Bonneville Dam Chronicle to our digitized newspapers works as a bookend for our collection of digitized papers on the construction of the Bonneville Dam in Cascade Locks, OR. The construction of the Bonneville Dam was a momentous and important moment in Oregon’s history. When its construction finished in the 1930’s, it was the largest dam of its kind in the United States! Anyone looking to do further research on the Bonneville Dam can find a wealth of information and primary source material on the Oregon Historic Newspapers website. As of now, we have three different papers published about the Bonneville Dam digitized online. These papers are the Dam Chronicle (1934), the Bonneville Dam Chronicle (1934-1939), and the newly added Cascade Locks Chronicle and The Bonneville Chronicle (1939).

Doing research through ODNP is easy thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which allows our issues to be keyword searchable! In addition, these historic Cascade Locks’ titles, as well as all of our digitized newspapers, can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes. All these services are at absolutely no cost to visitors of Historic Oregon Newspapers so don’t wait, and take a look at Oregon’s historic newspapers today!

The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program is excited to announce the addition of our first content from West Linn, Oregon! The Amplifier, now available for browsing on our website, was the school newspaper at West Linn High School. Able to claim an impressive publication record of nearly 100 years, The Amplifier has been up and running since 1921! Our added issues cover a date range from April 29, 1983 to April 1, 2011, and provide an inside look at the Oregon high school experience! This project was made possible by the generosity of the West Linn Historical Society.

Flipping through the digitized pages of The Amplifier, different facets of high school life fill the pages. These memories, perhaps some of which we never thought we would have to think of again (school lunch, the SAT and ACT, school dances, etc.), are presented with an authenticity only a student currently experiencing these events could provide.

Many of the titles the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program has available offer an incredible glimpse of life and nostalgia for the generations alive during their publication. The newly added Amplifier provides a unique opportunity for younger generations to look back on nostalgic events from their own adolescence.

If you want to learn more about what high school was like in West Linn, Oregon, or look back on your own high school experience, take a look at the digitized issues of The Amplifier on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website! Doing research through ODNP is easy thanks to optical character recognition (OCR), which allows all of our newspapers to be keyword searchable. In addition, The Amplifier, as well as all of our digitized titles, can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes. All of these services are free and fully available to the public, so don’t hesitate and take a look at Oregon’s historic newspapers today!

The Oregon Digital Newspaper Program has recently been able to add five new historic newspapers to our website, all coming from Stayton, Oregon! Issues from The Stayton Sun, The Stayton Times, Stayton Siftings, Stayton Standard, and the Stayton Mail are now available online. This exciting new addition to our digitized titles provides a comprehensive look at Stayton, covering a time period from December 19, 1889 to May 25, 1916. We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of our donors, who make projects like this possible. This project was funded by grants from the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, the Pacific Power Foundation, Marion Cultural Development Corporation, and the City of Stayton Community Fund.

The Stayton Times was established in 1890 and was the first newspaper in town. It was originally run by Walter Lyon, who had at one point been secretary to Governor Geer. Three years later, the paper was bought by Horace Mann, who when in February of 1896 refused to sell the paper to E. F. Bennet, the Stayton Mail was born.

 

E. F. Bennett began the Stayton Mail in 1896 after he was unable to take ownership of the Stayton Times. Along with his son, H. E. Bennett, he increased the size of the paper to eight pages and eventually sold it to H. E. Brown in 1900. Around this time a new paper, The Stayton Sun, was started by T. H. McGill. After operating as publisher for only a year, H. E. Brown sold the Stayton Mail to E. D. Alexander in 1901. Later, Alexander would start a new paper, the Stayton Standard, which would eventually consolidate with the Mail. During this period another paper was born, the Stayton Siftings, run by John Alden Seabury with the motto “Truth and Facts.”

 

These newly added Stayton titles provide an example of the quick turnover time characteristic of Oregon’s historic newspapers. To find out about other aspects of life in Stayton from the turn of the century to WW1, take a look at these newspapers on the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. Each issue of The Stayton Sun, The Stayton Times, Stayton Siftings, Stayton Standard, and the Stayton Mail can be browsed and searched by keyword, thanks to optical character recognition (OCR) technology. In addition, these historic Stayton, Oregon newspapers can be downloaded as a PDF or JPEG file and saved for future reference or research purposes at absolutely no cost to visitors to Historic Oregon Newspapers. So don’t wait, and take a look at Oregon’s historic newspapers today!

This blog post was written in reference to:

George S. Turbull. History of Oregon Newspapers. Binfords & Mort Publishers, Portland, Oregon. 1939.