Commentary

DAYTON–The newspaper you are reading is the first edition of the Dayton Chronicle’s 145th year.

The newspaper was founded on April 20, 1878, by T.M. May and H. H. Gale as the Columbia Chronicle, and it has been in continuous publication since.

Originally, the newspaper offices and shop was located where what is now the Depot Courtyard. A fire consumed that building, and yet publication continued without interruption.

Years later, in 1908, the Chronicle built its own building at 358 East Main Street, where the comings and goings of the people of Dayton and Columbia County were “chronicled” for the next 108 years. We moved to 163 East Main, next door to Dingle’s, another Dayton landmark, on February 29, 2016.

Through the 1880s and 1890s, a number of owners came and went, until O.C. White and R.E. Peabody bought it in 1890, publishing through the next 36 years. In 1926, Hugh O’Neil joined with Peabody.

B. M. Schick purchased the Chronicle in 1926 from Peabody and O’Neil, then he also swallowed up the other newspaper, the Columbia Dispatch in another of those roaring years, 1927, consolidating the papers into the Chronicle-Dispatch.

A whippersnapper named Pat O’Neil, Hugh’s brother, joined as a staff member in 1928.

In the depths of the Great Depression, sometime in the 1930s, Wayne Bishop acquired sole ownership of the Chronicle-Dispatch and published until, in November, 1942, Pat O’Neil and Hugh O’Neil bought the newspaper.

My father, Tom Baker, and Pat O’Neil were colleagues and friends, and I just called him “Uncle Pat.” He and his wife Frankie were always gracious hosts whenever we would visit. I recall “going to coffee” at Carden’s Café with Dad and Uncle Pat, and would listen intently to the “grown-up talk” when Mom and Dad would go to O’Neil’s for a visit. People did that back in the day; went around for a friendly, free-wheeling visit.

Pat bought out his brother in 1957 and published the thriving newspaper through the Sixties. Pat loved gadgets, and he had an Intertype linesetter with an electric eye to warn the operator of problems. He introduced my father to the Teletypesetter system which automated churning out galleys. One of my early jobs was being my father’s “electric eye,” watching the tape-operated keyboard to ensure its operation without hang ups.

I remember Uncle Pat choking up at his retirement celebration, held in the Grade School lunch room/gym, as important people from the community lauded him for his decades of faithful stewardship of the community newspaper.

New owners in 1973 were Vilene and Harry Ringhand, from Milton-Freewater. They kept the fires burning until Harry died tragically in January, 1976. His widow sold the Chronicle to Rick Helberg.

He ran it for about three years, handing off to Dan Zimmerman, who had a hired publisher, Doug Morgan. That arrangement held for a couple years when Jack and Maureen Williams took over ownership on January 21, 1981, and Williams would publish it until selling to its current stewards in 2014.

Since the 1980s, the Chronicle has been printed by offset presses, but until that time, it was produced, from scratch, and printed at 358 E. Main Street.

Printing of the newspaper recently changed to a different company, with a welcome improvement in quality. Charlotte and I hope you’ve noticed and we plan to continue providing community news that won’t be found in any other newspaper.