The Montavilla Sun Newspaper

By PATRICIA SANDERS

Page one detail of the first edition of “The Montavilla Sun,” March 12, 1915“

In 1915, Montavilla got its third newspaper, The Montavilla Sun. The community had been without one since the demise of The Montavilla Herald in 1906 and The Montavilla News in 1912.

With two newspapers having failed, why would anyone want to launch a new one in 1915?

One answer is Montavilla’s increased population, and another is the recent arrival of a veteran journalist, James Irving Crabbe (1845 – 1922).

Montavilla was growing and improving

According to articles in The Montavilla Sun, Montavilla’s population had doubled to 12,000 in recent years. In a top-center article on page one of the first edition, Montavilla real estate agent A. Nicetus Searle (1854 – 1935) reported a sizeable increase in home and commercial construction.

Through determined community efforts, Montavilla’s infrastructure was improving and there was determination to do even more. After a drawn-out battle, a sewer system was finally going in. For more on the battle for the sewer, see our previous story.

The Montavilla Board of Trade and its supporters wanted even more improvements, such as paving major east-west streets and better sidewalks.

A local newspaper could help with these efforts. It could give updates on progress and alert readers to other community needs. It could encourage more people to join in community efforts.

In early 1915, Montavilla was in a positive mood. The sewer was under way and the final bid was $25,000 lower than expected— meaning lower costs for ratepayers. To celebrate, the Montavilla Board of Trade, which had championed this project, held a major community event on February 19. There was a huge turnout: between 150 and 300 people, according to newspaper estimates. It began with at the Montavilla School lunchroom and progressed to music and speeches in the school auditorium.

A. N. Searle presided over the program. Portland Mayor H. Russell Albee (1867 – 1950) commended the Montavilla spirit. Among the additional speakers was Montavilla newcomer, James Irving Crabbe, who spoke on community cooperation.

Montavilla had its own journalist

By early 1914, Crabbe and his second-wife Hannah Frances Turner-Crabbe (1846 – 1939) were living on NE 74th Avenue. He joined the Montavilla Board of Trade and helped plan the program for the February 19, 1915 celebration. He was no longer publishing “The Portland Realty Index,” a trade paper, and was available to launch a new Montavilla weekly.

Montavilla was lucky to have its own journalist at this opportune moment.

Crabbe was not just a journalist; he was a veteran journalist.

Crabbe emigrated from England to Quebec in 1870 and by 1871 he was in the U. S. That year, he got his first newspaper job, as a proofread, for The Detroit Tribune.

He moved to Portland from St. Louis in 1911 and, by this time, he had worked on nearly 40 newspapers in various Midwestern and Southern states.

He had the talent, and he was available and willing to start a new community weekly. He called it The Montavilla Sun. He became the first, and only editor, and publisher of The Montavilla Sun.

Portrait of James Irving Crabbe (1845 – 1922) by illustrator S. Carlisle Martin (1967 – 1932)

Source: “The St. Louis Post-Dispatch,” March 2, 1905

The Montavilla Sun is launched

In the first edition, Crabbe explained his own reasons for establishing the paper in his first editorial. The Sun could help Montavilla by covering what “the big dailies” neglected: news about its educational, religious, and social life.

Revenue to support publication came, as usual, from subscriptions and advertising— which appeared on every page, including page one. Ads cost ten cents a line for businesses, but workers could run four or five lines for free. Subscriptions were five cents an issue. 

A few ads from page 1 of the April 16, 1915 edition of The Montavilla Sun

Like other community newspapers in small towns and neighborhoods across the country, The Montavilla Sun came out weekly. Each issue was four pages long. It went to press every week at noon Thursday and was in subscribers’ mailboxes by Friday evening.

The Montavilla Sun focused on local news, but also included personal items and entertaining features. Only occasionally did it cover national or international events. 

“The Montavilla Sun” reported mostly local news. In the first edition, the single item of non-local news—the war raging in Europe— warranted fewer column inches than an article about Mr. Worick’s birthday party.

In calling the Montavilla newspaper The Sun, Crabbe chose a common newspaper name. This connotes a newspaper that sheds light on what readers deserve to see. Several existing American newspapers, including the well-known New York Sun, chose this popular epithet.

Reporting the local news

Readers of The Sun could learn about important local efforts, such as street improvements. Crabbe also pointed out the need for a local park and swimming pool for Montavilla. It would be several years until these were achieved. For more on the establishment of Montavilla Park, see our previous story. For more on the Montavilla swimming pool, see our previous story.

The Sun gave readers updates on Montavilla’s churches, schools, clubs, library, and baseball team. It also reported on what neighbors were up to— who was sick with diphtheria, who was giving a party, who was visiting a relative, etc.

In the March 26 issue of The Sun, Crabbe proposed the creation of a new association to organize and promote the social, economic, and general welfare of Montavilla. The Sun would be the “organ” for this group. He hoped it would bring together various factions to devise ways— such as street cleaning and lighting— to physically improve “the Villa.” The group would also be expected to encourage Montavilla businesses. All residents— regardless of sex, race, color, or age— were invited to join. (Despite this statement of inclusion, The Sun also occasionally published so-called humor that would be considered racist today.)

Unemployment was a big issue in Portland. In his July 4 editorial, Crabbe proclaimed that governments should assure employment for every man— women were not mentioned— according to physical ability and capacity. The absence of work, he wrote, led inevitably to crime, he said.

Crabbe also reported on community progress and on what still needed attention. In the June 18th edition, for example, he noted that while the east side of 80th Street was getting a new sidewalk, the wooden sidewalk on the west side was still in “a shameful condition.”

Regular columns abound

Several topics appeared in The Sun as discrete columns with boxed headings.

“Montavilla Churches” column, “Montavilla Sun,” April 2, 1915

The “Montavilla Churches” feature covered the activities of the six local churches: Hope Presbyterian, Grace Baptist, Montavilla Episcopalian-Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Ascension Catholic Church (just outside today’s Montavilla west boundary), the Reorganized Latter-Day Saints, and the Christian Church.

“Our Baseball Team” column of May 7, 1915 on page 1 describes the Montavilla team’s victory over the Maccabees. “The Montavilla Sun,” May 7, 1915, page 1

When baseball season began, reports on the Montavilla team warranted their own column. Home games took place at the Cricket Club grounds (now the location of the Juvenile Justice Complex on NE 68th Place.)

Should a reader be curious about incidental events and what their neighbors were doing, they could turn to the “Local and Personal” column. Crabbe frequently slipped in a few ads disguised as personal reports, a practice considered journalistically unethical.

These snippets from the April 9 and April 16 editions are signs of a time when people were slowly transitioning from horses to automobiles. The third item is a barely disguised ad.

On the lighter side

The Montavilla Sun also included features purely for entertainment. Sometimes there were poems, sometimes short stories written by Crabbe, sometimes jokes. A regular column, “Letters to Miss Fatima Pink,” offered humorous advice to the lovelorn.

Excerpt from the “Letters to Miss Fatima Pink” column in the April 16, 1915 edition.

Crabbe may have adopted the name “Fatima,” from a brand of Turkish cigarettes popular in the early 20th Century. Crabbe, by the way, was a lifelong smoker. More on that later.

Fatima cigarettes packet

Source: Wikipedia

“The Montavilla Sun” also printed a regular column for children.

“For the Kiddies,“ excerpt from “The Montavilla Sun” of March 26, 1915

“The Montavilla Sun” also included features on health and beauty:

Excerpt from the “Health and Beauty” column in The Montavilla Sun, July 18, 1915

If news and regular features were in short supply, Crabbe had plenty of “fillers” on hand. Games, poems, educational trivia, and images could fill the gaps.

Puzzles were a way to entertain and to fill gaps in news. This one is from the April 9 edition of “The Sun.”

A wider perspective

While Crabbe reported mainly on Montavilla activities and concerns, he also offered a wider view by sharing his travel experiences, especially those in British Burma (now Myanmar), India, and Japan.

Crabbe was in colonial Burma and India in the 1860s when these countries were part of the British empire. Although he originally studied for the ministry at Oxford— according to an 1884 “Inter-Ocean” biography— he apparently wanted a more adventurous life. He passed the required exam and entered Britain’s prestigious India Civil Service.

Crabbe was assigned to British Burma and, for four years, he was an inspector of Burmese monastic schools. In his travels, he learned about the people, the environment, and Buddhism. These became topics for his popular lectures.

Crabbe had what was almost a second career as a lecturer. This dates back to, at least, 1871 when he lectured on Buddhism as part of the educational program at the Detroit House of Correction. He was still lecturing on British Burma and Buddhism as late as 1920.

In Montavilla, he lectured on his experiences in colonial India at Grebel’s Hall. This was one of Montavilla’s several public meeting places and was located above Grebel’s department store at the southwest corner of Stark Street and 80th Avenue, where Tinker Tavern is today.) Crabbe said he would talk about elephants, snakes, and tigers as well as acrobatic yogis, pagodas, and temples.

An announcement on Crabbe’s lecture on India in “The Montavilla Sun” of May 28, 1915

Crabbe enlivened his lectures with slides projected by a stereopticon (also called a “magic lantern”).

In the 19th Century and later, lecturers could illustrate their talks with images projected by a stereopticon. This illustration comes from an 1888 stereopticon catalog.

Source: Wikimedia

“The Montavilla Sun” folds… but when?

The June 18, 1915 edition is the latest issue of “The Montavilla Sun” found in University of Oregon Knight Library’s microfilm of this paper. This issue contains no announcement of discontinuation and no farewell editorial. And Crabbe was still soliciting advertising and subscriptions.

This item in the July 18 issue requests people to submit news items, etc. by Wednesday morning, suggesting The Montavilla Times would continue.

Did the newspaper last a while longer? Or did it end abruptly without warning? Who knows? Such an abrupt ending is not unprecedented. Some of Crabbe’s earlier newspapers had short lives. His Fargo, Dakota Territory newspaper lasted a single week; Crabbe fled the town after riling up the local Irish population apparently with an insulting comment.

Why did it end? Did Crabbe offend? Did income from subscriptions and ads not cover costs? The latter is possible. There were fewer ads in the June 18 paper compared to earlier editions.

Whenever The Montavilla Sun ceased publication, and for whatever reason, by early 1916 Crabbe had left Montavilla for the Sellwood neighborhood.

The Montavilla Sun was Crabbe’s last newspaper.

Crabbe moves on

Apparently, Crabbe, now 71, did not move to Sellwood to retire. The ever-energetic Crabbe took up new pursuits.

In Sellwood, he became superintendent of the Sunday School at St. John’s Episcopal Church. He was a lifelong Episcopalian, but he also admired Buddhism for its emphasis on kindness. The Oregon Daily Journal of June 27, 1913 reported that Crabbe considered himself a Christian Buddhist. This is less surprising than it may seem. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Americans were increasingly interested in and sympathetic to Buddhism. Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919), for example, was a sympathizer.

In his later years, Crabbe also reentered the world of music. A singer and pianist himself, he had been active in choral groups before coming to Portland. In 1902, he was the business manager of the St. Paul Choral Club. In St. Louis, in 1905, he tried to create a national choir organization and he compiled a songbook called Famous Ballads and Good Old Songs. 

In Portland, he became the secretary-treasurer of the new National Choral League.

In addition to his church and musical activities, Crabbe continued to write. His most ambitious undertaking at this time was his book Tobacconalia, published in 1920. In this book, he advocates tobacco use. Crabbe began smoking in British Burma after a severe bout of malaria, hoping tobacco would protect him from other tropical diseases. In his book, he recommended tobacco for its prophylactic qualities and as a sedative and a digestive aid. He even recommended tobacco use for women.

Title page of James Irving Crabbe’s “Tobacconalia.”

Source: Google Books

James Irving Crabbe died in Portland on August 9, 1922 of arteriosclerosis. You might suspect tobacco use was to blame. If so, he nevertheless surpassed the average life expectancy of the American male life: reaching 76 years, versus the 58.4 year average for 1922.

Conclusion

The Montavilla Sun offers us a rare glimpse into life in Montavilla in 1915 and an opportunity to see what the popular dailies of the early 20th Century were like.

The Montavilla Sun was James Irving Crabbe’s swan song. It marked the end of his 34-year journalistic career.

A postscript on Montavilla newspapers

After the demise of the Montavilla Sun, the community again lacked a newspaper for several years. The Montavilla Times began in 1921 and continued until 1938 or 1939.

By 1929, Montavilla had a second paper, The Montavilla News; which lasted until 1933 or 1934.

Another Montavilla News was published in the 1950s.

Today there is yet another Montavilla News, which is published online by Jacob Loeb.

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Sources

“The Montavilla Sun” is on microfilm at the University of Oregon’s Knight Library and photocopies made from this microfilm are in the “Montavilla” file in the Oregon Historical Society library.

Tobacconalia is online (last accessed 2/17/2024) 

For the current online “Montavilla News”  (last accessed (last accessed 2/17/2024)

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Historical story ideas? Questions about Montavilla’s past? Also share a love for neighborhood history? 

Comment on the article at the link in the heading. Or you can reach out to Pat Sanders at pat.montavilla.history@gmail.com.

Read all of the “Montavilla Memories” articles by Pat Sanders here.