Henry Pittock

Henry Lewis Pittock (March 1, 1835 (some sources cite 1836) – January 28, 1919) was an English-born American pioneer, publisher, newspaper editor, and wood and paper magnate.

[9] An avid outdoorsman and adventurer, Pittock is credited to have been the first white man to ascend the summit of Mount Hood on July 11, 1857, with four friends, although his employer, Dryer, made a disputed prior claim.

[11] Dryer turned over the debt-ridden Oregonian to Pittock as compensation for remaining unpaid salary and agreement to assume the paper's sizable financial obligations.

[13] Pittock addressed the fiscal problems of the paper by requiring cash payment for subscriptions, and implemented a vigorous collection effort for accounts Dryer had allowed to become delinquent.

Scott would ultimately purchase shares in the paper and had a long intermittent tenure on its staff, leaving for a time to work for the rival Portland Bulletin.

Long a political nemesis, Daly enraged Pittock by implicating him in a scheme to provide a water service to his palatial home at considerable taxpayer expense.

Although the resulting scandal soon died down, Pittock continued relentlessly to discredit Daly, and ultimately succeeded in ending his political career, branding him as a socialist, through publication of documents obtained by burglary.

[20] Pittock's business interests would soon grow to include investments in Portland banks, real estate, transportation, and logging and lumbering.

[22] Having briefly lost control of the paper during the 1870s, and narrowly escaping bankruptcy during the depression of 1877,[23] Pittock continued to manage his newspaper, maintaining long hours in his office until days before his death in Portland.

Stricken with influenza, he was reported to have had himself carried to an east bay window of his mansion, to look once more at the vista across the city where he had made and broken careers, and amassed a fortune.

[25] Unwilling to yield control of his newspaper even in death, he had provided in his will for a majority of the shares of The Oregonian stock to be held by two trustees, with "full and complete authority" to run the paper for 20 years.

Portrait of Pittock
Pittock Mansion
Gravesite of Pittock and his wife, Georgiana Burton Pittock