Historic Hood River
A Town with One Lawyer?
Notes
There’s an old joke that a town too small to support one lawyer can always support two. Well, meet Charles (C.P.) Heald, the only lawyer in Hood River in 1894 when he was elected the city’s first recorder. As the only candidate he received 68 votes in the first city elections held in December 1894. You can read the coverage in The Hood River Glacier.
The city recorder is no longer an elected position. She is appointed by the city manager, who is selected by the city council.
City politics must have been exhausting in that first year. It’s hard to figure out exactly what was going on just by reading the newspaper coverage, but it appears the town was split pretty evenly between people who wanted to impose rules on the rapidly swelling city, and those who liked it fine the way it was before. Mayor Wolfard moved to White Salmon at the end of the first year. C. P. Heald’s family boarded a train in December hoping to arrive at their new home in Peoria Illinois by Christmas.
nels
Interesting that one who journeyed a great distance to be here and then shows some success, turns around and heads 1500 miles back to “civilization”.
Jeffrey Bryant
The Heald family was living in Hood River by 1891, when their daughter, Helen, was born. Charles and Mary Heald died in Omaha, Nebraska.