OREGONIAN, THE

morning daily newspaper published in Portland, Ore., one of the outstanding dailies of the U.S. Northwest, for many years the only newspaper in the seven northwesternmost states. It was founded as a weekly when Portland had only 700 inhabitants. The paper's first publisher, Thomas J. Dryer, was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be U.S. commissioner of the Sandwich Islands (later the Hawaiian Islands), and Dryer gave the paper to his typographer and printer, Henry Pittock, in lieu of back wages. The paper became a daily in 1861. Independent politically, The Oregonian gained fame throughout the region and in the United States for its editorial excellence. The paper was a technological pioneer, one of the first in the United States to transmit copy by telegraph and to use pictures received by wirephoto. In 1950 Samuel I. Newhouse purchased the paper. The Oregonian converted from letterpress to offset printing in 1975.