History at a Glance

In 1932, Norman Westfall, acting as publisher, editor and chief printer, established a newspaper he called The Hood Canal Courier in Hoodsport. The weekly paper offered local residents the opportunity to keep up with "who, what, where, when, and how" along the canal.

In 1986, the Shelton-Mason County Journal interviewed Ralph Smith, who had gone to work at the Courier after graduating from college. As with all small papers at the time, the type for the paper was all set by hand. Smith related some of the problems associated with that method: "By accident of geography, we made some typographical errors intentionally - more and more of them as the week closed in on us on Thursday afternoon and more and more pages were set in type. One of the most newsy places in the Courier's orbit was the Skokomish Valley, both upper and lower. The maker of newspaper fonts never planned on news with that many Ks. Pages 2 and 3 were mostly ads and presented no problem. The printers would try to get those finished by Tuesday (the paper came out on Friday), so they could use the type to print the outside pages on Thursday night. With some luck, we'd have the type back in the cases by Wednesday morning. But then we'd start setting pages 1 and 4, and page 1 was all news. Skokomish Valley stories kept coming in and by Thursday afternoon we were in trouble. Every week by Thursday afternoon we were out of Ks. And every week there were still more Skokomish stories to set. As far as I can remember, we finished our typesetting with inspired editing, to find words without Ks. By then, readers would have to guess what valley 'the valley' was."

"Getting out the paper came with some perks you just can't get any more. Like dropping everything, grabbing buckets, and heading for the beach - even on a press day - when there was a good clam tide. When the paper was in the mail the following morning, we'd all head to the Westfall house for a late breakfast of steamed clams."

Pay was minimal. Ralph made $3 a week plus his board. "I didn't feel deprived. Part of the deal allowed me to charge groceries at the Hoodsport store. When the oysterman came around with oysters in the shell at 15 cents a dozen I knew even then it was a bargain. And if the tide was low in the morning I would collect a bucket of rock clams for breakfast. Those steamed clams, clam nectar, and whole wheat bread were breakfasts that made my whole Hoodsport experience worthwhile."

According to an early edition of the Courier, its principal endeavor was to encourage vacationers to visit the Hood Canal region. "Here you will find modern resorts, bathing beaches and picturesque, shady, wooded camping places by the hundred. You can stand on cool scenic beaches and look up to the snow-clad spires of the enchanted Olympic Mountains towering into the quiet blue-domed heavens above. If, on your vacation, you seek Health, Wealth and Happiness, then come here."

In 1934, Westfall changed the name of the paper to Outdoor Life and Health. The masthead proclaimed that the paper was now dedicated to "outdoor philosophy, constructive thought, and natural food education." Ralph Smith described Westfall as "out front in enough ways to fit fairly comfortably into today's scene. For one thing, he was a vegetarian of sorts. Clams were OK, and so was bacon if it was cooked to a crisp, when he said it became a mineral." By April 5, 1935, Westfall had changed his newspaper back to The Hood Canal Courier, with its more traditional format.

The Hood Canal Courier was succeeded by the Hood Canal News. Cal Mann was 20 years old when he, his wife Helen, and his mother Vesta started the paper in 1947, in their home near Happy Hollow on the South Shore. The News employed 32 correspondents (paid by the number of inches they wrote) covering the canal from Seabeck to Belfair to Brinnon, with Allyn thrown in for good measure. "We started that paper with $20 and half a tank of gas," Mann said in a 1985 interview. The first issues were printed by the Port Townsend Leader, then by the Port Orchard Independent. Eventually, the Manns purchased a lithograph press and set it up in a small chalet they had built across the highway from their home.

Local artist Waldo Chase created a block print of three Skokomish tribal canoes for the paper's flag. The News consisted of four large pages and covered local and regional news, sports (especially fishing), and social life. Helen Mann's "Make Mine Country Style" column was especially popular with readers. But the paper struggled, making at best a $300-a-month profit. In the fourth anniversary issue, Mann wrote that "in the face of rising costs, newsprint scarcity, and a critical foreign situation (the Korean War) we cannot state for certain that The News will be here for another four years." Increased advertising competition from the Bremerton Sun was also hurting the paper.

The Hood Canal News stopped publication Aug. 20, 1951, to reorganize and refinance, but after publishing one more issue to mark Labor Day weekend, it folded permanently. Cal Mann went to work for The Bremerton Sun before moving with his wife to Bellingham in the late 1950s.

■ 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."