Whenever towns or states have small populations, opportunities of quality can arise for the downtrodden. With a small population not only in Burns but through much of Grant County, and later Harney County, women gained new opportunities to make their mark on both society and history. The name Burns Times-Herald did not appear until after 1930, it would take the consolidation of roughly a half-dozen papers and a number of decades to make this happen.

The most female owners of the Burns Times-Herald pride themselves on the fact that their founder was not only a remarkable pioneer, but worked in the newspaper business well into her ninth decade.^[1]Nellie R. Grace and her husband, David Louis Grace, started up two of the Burns Times-Herald’s predecessors, the Burns News (1887) and the East Oregon Herald (1894). In 1891, brothers Julian and Charles A. Byrd not only purchased the East Oregon Herald from the Grace’s but merged it with two previously bought papers, the Harney Times and the Burns Tribune.^[2] This merger led to the creation of the Times-Herald. While this occurred, another competitor in the industry, the Burns News, absorbed the remaining independent paper, the Harney Valley Items.^[3] Up until 1930, these two remaining papers fiercely fought one another for the majority control of Burns.

Before the merger, the Graces and Julian became central figures to civic life in the town. David went on to teach and eventually became the school superintendent for Burns. Nellie never lost her passion for the written word and remained a contributor to the Times-Herald, as well as a librarian. Julian, the paper’s manager, used his power to not only apply pressure to the railroad companies to bring tracks into Harney County, but has been credited with “bringing motion pictures, the telephone, and electricity to Burns.”^[4]

After the two papers merged in the 1930s, the Burns Times-Herald passed through many hands. Recently, in 2006, members of the editorial and business team decided to buy out the paper and place it back in local hands.^[5] This is the first time in Oregon that a paper has been bought out by staff.

Contact Information

Notes

^[1] Library of Congress, “About the Times-Herald. (Burns, Harney County, Or.) 1896-1929,” last modified 2013, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn96088246/.

^[2] Library of Congress, “About the Times-Herald. (Burns, Harney County, Or.) 1896-1929.”

^[3] Isolde Raftery, “Burns Times-Herald,” last modified 2008, http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/history/burnstimes/.

^[4] Isolde Raftery, “Burns Times-Herald.”

^[5] Isolde Raftery, “Burns Times-Herald.”