HISTORY AT A GLANCE

In the summer of 1935, 25-year-old Dave James came to Shelton to edit the Shelton Independent, the "only Democratic newspaper on the West Coast - or maybe in the world." This story is adapted from a story James wrote for a 1985 Shelton centennial supplement to the Shelton-Mason County Journal.

A. J. Chitty had started the weekly Shelton Independent in 1927, much to the annoyance of Grant Angle, who had been publishing the Shelton-Mason County Journal since 1886. According to James, "Chitty was a deeply-saturated Democrat and Angle stood slightly to the right of Herbert Hoover. Their editorial friction kept the home fires burning."

When President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Chitty as U.S. marshal in Tacoma, Grant Angle and his son, Eber, bought the struggling Independent. They reasoned that keeping the Independent alive would discourage stronger competition from entering Shelton. When the Angles hired Dave James to be editor, "Eber told me I was to run the paper as profitably as possible, and keep it Democratic. The Angles let it be known that they owned both weeklies, but the Independent would hoe its own row and admire the New Deal."

In 1935, Shelton was an isolated community of less than 3,000 residents. James soon learned that many outsiders thought of it as Little Chicago. "Hal Lyman, state editor of the Tacoma News Tribune, wanted me to be his Shelton correspondent, because he believed that Shelton was a pretty good town for strange murders and maybe I could dig one up shortly."

A subscription to the paper cost $1 per year; single copies could be had for 5 cents. "People had little money and many a subscription was granted to farmers who came in with eggs or canned fruit."

Shelton had its share of interesting characters in 1935. Before naming them, however, James cautioned that "newcomers to Shelton quickly learned to guard their tongues when talking about people. Blood relationships among Shelton's older families covered the town like a spider web. Any indiscreet remark, no matter how innocently expressed, might rub raw as an unintended slur against a relative."

Walter Elliot, head of the Lumbermen's Mercantile store, "ran the L-M like an overlord. The store's slogan was 'Everything from a Needle to a Locomotive.' Walt was a big man who knew the value of personal service. He taught his clerks to greet customers as if they were long-lost cousins. Lumbermen's full-page ads kept the Independent solvent, and whenever I wanted news about who had come to town, I went to see Walt Elliot."

Among James' favorites were four women who had found their way into what was still very much a man's world. "Postmistress Jessie Knight was a daughter of Mary M. Knight, an early superintendent of Mason County Schools. Susie Pauley assisted County Auditor Harry Deyette and knew everybody in the county. County Clerk Clair Engelsen was so pretty that admiring reporters would often return to her office four times a day under the pretense of forgetting things. Dora Fredson, of the pioneer Fredson family, was responsible for helping Shelton School Superintendent Enzo Loop fill the skulls of Shelton's pupils with worldly knowledge."

Tony Fonzo's tavern, Merv Getty's cigar store, Mac's Corner tavern, and Smith's Cigar Store were favorite haunts of the loggers who "came to town sober on Saturdays and returned to camp Sunday night singing of home and mother."

Service club meetings were held in the Shelton Hotel, with Ed Faubert in command. Faubert's father had thrown the front door key away when he opened the hotel for business 40 years earlier. Kiwanians sang their hearts out to the piano-pounding of Realtor Neil Zintheo. Visitors who wanted to see something big in Shelton were shown the enormous bathtub that had been built especially for Alfred H. Anderson in an upper floor room of the hotel. Anderson, once a partner in the Simpson Logging Company, had stood 6 feet 8 inches tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds.

The Shelton that James came to know in 1935 "revolved around Railroad Avenue. The Peninsular Railway, later known as the Simpson Line, was the lifeline between town and the camps. As their lokies pulled logs through town to the bay, engineers such as Frank Wandell, Warren Earl, Frank Brown, and others would wave at friends the length of the avenue. When logging returned each spring after winter shutdowns, the town barbers, Realtors, grocers, and insurance agents would line the sidewalks to greet the trains and thank their Maker for the return of prosperity." Since both local papers were published only on Thursday, undertaker Bill Witsiers made use of shop windows on Railroad Avenue to post funeral announcements.

In June, 1936, Dave James left Shelton to work for the Tacoma News Tribune. In 1947, he returned to Shelton to handle media relations for the Simpson Logging Company. In 1960, the company transferred him to Seattle to serve as public relations director. He wrote two books for the Mason County Historical Society: "Grisdale, Last of the Logging Camps" and "Big Trees and Steam Lokies." When he died in 1995, Journal editor Charles Gay wrote a two-column obituary, which included the comment that "His wit, attention to detail and ability to turn a phrase were legend, and he loved to write about characters he had known." The Mason County Historical Museum is fortunate to have several boxes of Dave James' letters, research, personal and professional correspondence, and photographs.

(When Grant Angle retired and sold his newspapers in 1937, the Shelton Independent was consolidated with the Journal.)

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."