The weekly Ashland Tidings was the first newspaper published in Ashland, Ore., its first edition dated June 17, 1876. The present-day newspaper’s website says it was a time when “Ashland had about 500 people but neither church (n)or saloon.” The website quotes the first-editor, James M. Sutton, as writing, “whiskey is sold by the bottle and preaching is done in the schoolhouse; and therefore, the people are generally happy.”