Halsey Newspaper History

Halsey News 1889 - 1895 Weekly	Halsey’s newspapers go back to 1889, when Morris & Phelps (Ira A.) started the News as a Saturday weekly. Sixteen-year-old C. Gray (1891) was the next publisher of the News. In 1893 the masthead carried the firm name Gray & Cross. The paper was styled “independent” in Ayer’s for 1895. It was missing from the directories for 1898. There follows a hiatus in Halsey journalism until 1912, though there is vague gossip to the effect that for a short time the Halsey barber ran a paper as a side line, adding clipping to his shearing and shaving.

Halsey Enterprise 1912 - 1925 Rural Enterprise 1925 - 1927 Halsey Enterprise 1927 - 1929 Weekly	D. F. Dean, founder of other Oregon papers, established in 1912 the newspaper which, with occasional short skips because of sketchy support, continued to the recent present. Information regarding the early life of the Enterprise is scarce. William H. Wheeler, veteran printer-publisher, a later owner of the paper, found the office serving largely as a warehouse for stacks and stacks of old newspapers (71) in which the Enterprise was much mixed with other newspapers from all over the state. They had not been regularly filed, so rather than bother with unscrambling the mass he “let the entire lot go up in smoke.” Much of the information gained of the early days of the Enterprise has been gleaned from files in the library of the University of Oregon. After two years Dean sold the paper to William A. Priaulx, another veteran, who has conducted newspapers in several other Oregon towns. In 1916 Mr. Priaulx brought in D. H. Talmadge as editor. May 16, 1918, Mr. Talmadge became owner as well as editor. He ran a bright and newsy six-column all-home-print newspaper. In July of the next year Mr. Talmadge sold out to Charles F. Ballard of Portland, who cut the size to five columns. In June 1921 Mr. Ballard sold to D. F. Dean, the founder. This veteran, in the meantime, however, had crippled his hands in logging camp work and in two months he sold to William H. Wheeler, already mentioned. Wheeler, 75 years old, had just completed a lease on the Brownsville Times. He was assisted in his work by his 74-year-old wife, who did the newsgathering and the bookkeeping. Together they raised the size of the paper back to six columns, and ran six pages, one-third of which was plate matter. They also raised the advertising rates from 12-1/2 cents to 20 cents an inch and the subscription price to $2 ($1 .50 to those who paid in advance). Wheeler changed the name of the paper in 1925 to the Rural Enterprise and made it eight pages. In the meantime his first wife had died and No. 2 assisted him in making the Rural Enterprise more of a farm-community paper. He sold in 1927 to H. F. and A. A. Lake, who changed the name back to the Halsey Enterprise and in 1929 combined it with the Greater Oregon of Albany and moved it to the county seat.

Halsey Journal 1932-1939 Halsey Review 1939-1963 Weekly	The field has since been re-occupied by the Halsey Journal, launched in 1932 by C. V. Averill & Son, formerly of Brownsville (later known as the Halsey Review).