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Chronicling America
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Newspaper Ashland Tidings (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919

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About Ashland Tidings (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919

Many ambitious settlers were drawn to the southern Oregon town of Ashland, incorporated in 1874, including Oregon Sentinel editor James M. Sutton, founder of the town’s first newspaper, the Ashland Tidings. First published on June 17, 1876, the Tidings began as a weekly issued on Saturdays, consisting of a four-page spread with six columns per page, at $2.00 for a year’s subscription.

The Tidings changed hands numerous times before experiencing relative stability in management around 1879. Within months of launching the paper, Sutton sold the Tidings to Ashland businessman John M. McCall. Beginning in 1878, Oliver C. Applegate managed the paper for a short time. Corliss Merritt and William Leeds together bought the paper in 1879, though Merritt soon sold out to Leeds. Leeds operated the Tidings until 1894 when he sold his interests to longtime employee Fred D. Wagner, who served as editor and publisher until 1911. After Wagner, Connecticut editor Ralph B. Bennett and his brother, Leigh Bennett, conducted the paper for one year before selling.

The Tidings’ format and coverage evolved significantly throughout its initial period of publication. In early versions, the paper was limited to four pages of local news, editorials, advertising, and folk tales. Leeds added features such as national news stories on the front page and a “Local Brevities” section consisting of short updates on activities of local figures and organizations. Originally “independent in all subjects,” the Tidings began to overtly favor the Republican agenda in the 1880s. Editorials supported women’s suffrage and local miners’ strikes. By 1896, the Tidings was issued semiweekly, distributed on Mondays and Thursdays, and an entire page was devoted to women’s issues and news, likely stemming from its pro-suffragist stance. The paper also highlighted labor unions’ support of the railroad industry’s potential for creating local jobs. Early coverage of race and ethnicity shifted from overtly critical treatments of Native Americans and Chinese immigrants to presenting non-whites as oddities, as demonstrated by an 1889 headline: “Japanese Wedding; Have you witnessed yet?”

The Tidings underwent significant changes under the management of veteran editor and publisher Bert R. Greer from 1912 to 1927. In 1919, Greer, the successful former editor of the Kansas City Tribune, changed the paper’s title to the Ashland Weekly Tidings and expanded with a daily publication, the Ashland Daily Tidings. Greer also increased the page count to eight and added a local society section titled “In the Social Realm.” By 1922, Greer began highlighting the paper’s status as an “International News Wire Service.” In 1928, the Ashland Printing Company assumed management of the Tidings. After a title change to the Daily Tidings in 1970 and then back to the Ashland Daily Tidings in 1993, the current publication now runs  six days a week, Monday through Saturday, and maintains a circulation of 5,500 among the communities of Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, and Medford.

Provided By: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Ashland Tidings (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919

Dates of Publication

  • 1876-1919

Created / Published

  • Ashland, Or. : J.M. Sutton, 1876-1919.

Headings

  • -  Ashland (Or.)--Newspapers
  • -  Jackson County (Or.)--Newspapers
  • -  Oregon--Ashland
  • -  Oregon--Jackson County
  • -  United States--Oregon--Jackson--Ashland

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Semiweekly, Mar. 4, 1919-Aug. 29, 1919
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (June 17, 1876)-v. 43, no. 60 (Aug. 29, 1919).
  • -  Also issued on microfilm from University of Oregon.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Historic Oregon Newspaper online collection.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Ashland daily tidings (Ashland, Or. : 1919) 2333-1437 (DLC)sn 96088003 (OCoLC)36710758

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn85042399

OCLC Number

  • 12351893

ISSN Number

  • 2330-734x

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Ashland Tidings Ashland, Or. -1919. (Ashland, OR), Jan. 1 1876. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85042399/.

APA citation style:

(1876, January 1) Ashland Tidings Ashland, Or. -1919. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85042399/.

MLA citation style:

Ashland Tidings Ashland, Or. -1919. (Ashland, OR) 1 Jan. 1876. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn85042399/.