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Daily Journal of Commerce
145 years of building industry connections
Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s - long before People magazine and TMZ started tracking the daily doings of celebrities - the stars of Portland had their own version of dedicated media.
On the pages of the Daily Journal of Commerce, people could read about the latest doings of Portland's architects, engineers and builders. The DJC, in an early incarnation, was there to tell the story in July of 1908, for example, when architect Edgar M. Lazarus broke his collar bone after being thrown from a horse. At least one of the newspaper's reporters could be counted on to be on hand for each of the baseball league games that regularly pitted the architects and the builders of the city against each other - including the 1909 game in which architect A.E. Doyle hit a home run with the bases loaded.
The stories of Oregon's architects - as well as its builders and engineers - have changed over the years as have the ways that those interested in the local building community obtain their news. But what has remained constant for 145 years is the fact that the Daily Journal of Commerce has been there to record the details of those who shaped the city and helped it rise - from the ground up.
The newspaper that would eventually evolve into the Daily Journal of Commerce was 'born" in 1872, the same year that Portland's first trolleys - drawn by mules and horses - began operating on First Street. One of those tracking the trolley and other projects that were shaping the city was a man named Harry Haugsten.
For Harry, the world of construction was about more than "lumber and nails," his daughter Dorothy Smith told the DJC during an interview in 2007. He realized that news about the building industry was something people in Portland both needed and were interested in. That observation led Harry to start a newspaper called the Daily Bulletin in 1907. Armed with a notebook, he headed out to talk with developers, contractors, architects and engineers about the projects they were working on. Along the way, he came to know almost as much about permits, licenses and...