Vancouver’s 1913 news echoes 2013’s

Excerpts from 1913 Vancouver Columbian

“Poultry for the Christmas dinner will cost the Vancouver consumer this year about the same as he last year paid for it. Turkeys are bringing 30 cents a pound, geese 25 cents a pound, chickens and ducks 20 cents. A prime rib roast of beef is bringing 22 cents for a pound, while pork roasts range in price from 16 to 20 cents. Steaks will command anywhere from 18 to 25 cents a pound. Cranberries for the Christmas dinner are selling at 15 cents a pound, the same price as last year. Butter and eggs are both down, best creamery butter bringing 80 cents a roll, rather than 90 cents, and eggs 45 cents rather than 50 cents, the price which the housewife paid for them last year.”

— The Columbian, Dec 24, 1913

Looking at The Vancouver Columbian’s holiday season headlines from 100 years ago provides an unusual window into the past that is both antiquated and surprisingly modern.

Issues over the Interstate Bridge, marriage rights and homelessness plagued the city — with many headlines that could be ripped from today’s papers.

At the same time, a typhoid epidemic ravaged the state, tuberculosis and diabetes were major killers, bounties were paid for the shooting of outlaws and many groups were looked upon as second class citizens.

Here are some highlights from the week of Dec. 24, 1913, to Jan 1, 1914. The full text of these stories is online at www.columbian.com.

Gifts

Christmas gifts of the day weren’t quite so digital. Instead of tablet computers and cell phones, Santa handed out candy, oranges and nuts to eager children.

Through the holidays in Clark County “candy (sales) in the city has been unprecedented, according to local dealers,” one story on Christmas Eve said.

For a broader list of loot, The Columbian printed this on Dec. 26, 1913: “Dolls, doll house outfits, furs and bracelets for sister, engines, gocycles and trains for brother, chafing dishes, casseroles, percolators and silverware for mother, cigars, gloves, handkerchiefs, ties and smoking jackets for father — there was scarcely a home in Vancouver which did not receive a consignment of these gifts from his majesty of the north. … Electric gifts are gaining in popularity every year while local merchants report the sale of an astonishing number of carving sets, chafing dishes and dinner service appointments.”

Christmas wishes

In broad brushstrokes that women would likely find offensive today, the paper wished a Merry Christmas to one and… well… to the male workers of the county, at least: “On the eve of the dawning of the glad Christmas day, The Columbian sends greetings to its many readers, coupled with the sincere wish that the New Year, now just without our gates, may bear to each of you the inestimable blessings of health, happiness, prosperity and domestic peace. To you who till the soil for its fruitage, may you reap bountiful harvests to reward your industry. To you who devote your energies to the busy channels of trade, and to you in the honored professions, may success crown your efforts to the fullness of your desires. To the artisans and laborers who toil with muscle might, in shop or in the open, may your reward be so bountiful that no word of complaint may ever fall from your lips. To one and all, in every field of enterprise and labor that contributes to the advancement of prosperity in our city and county, and to the women whose love, encouragement and wise counsel are incentives to yet greater achievements in the battle of life on the part of their protectors, The Columbian wishes a Merry Christmas and a Glad New Year.”

Pride and prejudice?

Prejudice against groups of people — the poor, the deaf, minorities and others — sometimes came in the odd form of good wishes.

For instance, on Christmas Eve that year, the paper announced that children “will enjoy the Christmas tree at the State School for the Deaf … and will welcome St. Nicholas with all the ecstasy of children possessing all of their faculties.”

Then there’s this story, which young John Lister couldn’t have been too pleased with: “Governor Lister’s biggest Christmas present, a thoroughbred Jersey cow with a pedigree almost as long as herself and a record for butterfat production, arrived at the executive mansion last night. … John, the governor’s chubby son, will learn to milk next week.”

Marriage issues

Couples not allowed to marry in Oregon would come over the border to tie the knot here, although the issue wasn’t over gay marriage. Back then, it was illegal for Black people to get married in Oregon: “To be married and yet not married is the predicament which Geo Lander and Laurette Adams, colored people of Portland, have found themselves in by their evident desire to evade Oregon law. The two came to Vancouver and secured a marriage license, but instead of having the ceremony performed here, returned to Portland where they were married by Rev. J. Logal Craw of the African Methodist church. The law provides that a marriage to be legal must be performed in the same state in which the license is issued. Mr. and Mrs. Lander have been informed by the county clerk that they will have to return to Vancouver and be remarried.”

Disease

The “white plague,” apparently a nickname for tuberculosis, caused many deaths in the area in 1913. “Elizabeth McGown, age 36 years, died at the family home at 2105 East B street, early last evening. Mrs. McGown had been a patient sufferer of tuberculosis for the past four years,” one front page story that week read.

At least a typhoid outbreak was starting to slow down: “That conditions in Centralia relative to the typhoid epidemic are improving and that the height of the trouble is reached and passed are the opinions of Gov. Ernest Lister, who spent Tuesday there conferring with the authorities in regard to the matter. There are approximately 250 cases stated the governor upon his return, of which nine have died. All the regular hospitals are filled to their capacities, with a special hospital prepared in the armory of the National Guard and caring for 35 patients.”

The bridge

The selection of an engineer for the upcoming bridge across the Columbia River was a big, controversial issue that spanned many headlines of the day.

Even postponed meetings made the front page, in a day when Clark County had an extra “e” tacked onto its name: “The selection of an engineer for the interstate bridge to be constructed at this city as part of the great Pacific Highway has been again postponed. … The engineer who is to be chosen Monday, if the meeting is not again postponed, will have complete charge of the plans and construction of the new bridge and its approaches, which will total $1,750,000, bonds for which have been voted by Multnomah and Clarke counties.”

Fortunately, Monday’s meeting went on as planned: “Waddell & Harrington have been selected as the engineers and will possibly be the constructors of the new interstate Pacific Highway bridge across the Columbia at this point. The decision was made this morning in Portland at a meeting of the joint commission and the two counties. As to the draw to be used the matter was left open. The engineers are to submit plans for three types of draw, the bascule, the lift and the swing.”

The homeless

The county’s homeless weren’t particularly welcomed, except for a brief span on Christmas, the paper noted.

On Christmas, “sixteen ‘sleepers’ were given a good breakfast by the city officials … in honor of the day, before they were told to go on. About the usual number had been picked up in the railroad yard and about the streets after hours and had been taken to the police stations for the night. Instead of making them move on as soon as they awoke in the morning, however, they were asked to the restaurant and given a ‘square’ as a slight reminder that all Vancouver was filled with the joy of giving and spirit of the day.”

The railroad also fed “the great army of the unemployed,” according to another story: “Eighteen hundred twenty-nine unemployed men were fed by the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. on board the steamer Hassalo Christmas day. Dinner was served to the hungry men from 9:30 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, and none was turned away without his hunger being satisfied. A ton of meat, more than a pound for each man, was used, 1 1/2 tons of potatoes, 1,000 pounds of cabbage, 200 gallons of beans, 70 gallons of milk, 30 gallons of cream, 1000 loaves of bread and other vegetables in proportion with plum pudding, pie and all the coffee every man wanted. It required 30 waiters, 10 cooks and 15 dishwashers to care for the crowd of men who were there.”

Burning buildings

Shortly before New Year’s, a disaster struck. On Monday, Dec. 29: “The historic old auditorium at Third and Washington streets, one of the finest buildings in the city at the time of its erection … degenerated into a condemned old structure which has been the habitation of rats and tramps and has sheltered countless frogs … burned to the ground this morning from a fire, the source of which is unknown. … A blown-out fuse in the new fire tractor caused some delay in getting to the fire, but within 15 minutes after the alarm had been turned in four streams were playing on the walls and surrounding buildings, even the old steamer having been called into service. … The fire is believed to have originated from tramps who have infested the building since winter began. The owner has been warned repeatedly by police to lock it up, but since it was bringing him no income, he said that he did not care to go to any more expense.”

By New Year’s Eve, the paper noted that at least one person may have died in the fire: “That Tom Crane, a Portland boy of about 13 years of age, was burned to death in the fire which destroyed the old auditorium Monday morning is the fear expressed by local people today, since his failure to show up when it is known that he was to have slept in the old shack. Crane left a ticket with friends living in the lower part of town and said that he would call for it the next morning. He was to have stayed for the night with these friends, but they had no room and he said that he would sleep in the auditorium. In the excitement the next morning he was forgotten, but since he has not called for his ticket, and it was known that he had no money, it is feared that he was destroyed in the fire.”

I shot the …oh wait, the sheriff shot me

One industrious county sheriff demanded extra pay for shooting a suspected criminal: “The matter of the county paying Giles Quimby a reward for killing John Tornow the outlaw will have to be fought over in court. … Quimby was a deputy sheriff in the search for Tornow and was receiving pay at $4 a day. After the shooting of Tornow it was expected that he would receive the $1,000 reward offered by the state and the $3,000 offered by the county. Soon thereafter the attorney general decided the state’s money could not be paid under the circumstances because Quimby was a deputy sheriff. Quimby put in a claim for $3,000. The commissioners allowed the bill, but the warrant was not paid before attorney W. H. Abel brought an action to prevent its payment. He was overruled on the first complaint and then brought the second. The ruling of the demurrer in effect says that Mr. Abel has a cause for action and the matter will now be fought out on merits.”

Prosperity and the dawn of a new year

As the new year began, the paper anticipated great economic growth and prosperity for the region: “Despite the cry of quiet times, and close times, a general resume of Vancouver business made last night just before the old year passed into history showed that this past year has not been one of business depression in Vancouver, and gave much of hope for an unprecedented year of prosperity in 1914. … Vancouver has been prosperous. Her merchants have had good sales, her people have lived well, dressed well and enjoyed life in every way possible. The outlook for 1914 is the best that could be desired. A great interstate bridge which will rank among the greatest in the world is to be constructed across the Columbia river, connecting Vancouver and Portland. Large numbers of workmen who will be employed on the construction of the great bridge will make their homes in Vancouver, while preparatory to the opening of the bridge and provision of an easy means of communication between this city and the Oregon metropolis, hundreds of Portland people will come to this city to make their home.”