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Cage 118
Homer M. Hill
Papers, 1877-1933

The papers of Homer M. Hill were a gift of Mrs. Libby Hoag to the Washington State University Library in the 1940's. This collection was reported to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections in 1970. (MS 70-1395) They were processed by Terry Abraham in October, 1973.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Homer M. Hill was born in Senecaville, Ohio, November 28, 1855. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1882 and became a teacher in the Minneapolis Academy. The following year he entered the newspaper business as Mandan correspondent of the Bismarck Tribune and subsequently business manager of the Brainerd (Minn.) Tribune. In April of 1884 he purchased an interest in the Helena (Mont.) Independent. In May of that year he married Carrie M. Lovell of Nevada, Iowa. The following year he sold out his Helena interests and moved to Seattle where be began publishing the True Tone and subsequently the Daily Press (combining the Evening Call and the Evening Chronicle which he had purchased). He maintained the Press until August, 1889 when he sold it to Hunt and Bailey.

In 1892 he, with two partners, purchased the Morning Telegraph. It was the Telegraph which installed the first Mergenthaler typesetting machines west of the Rockies in 1893. In addition, Hill was President of the Washington State Press Association, 1893-1894.

His political and civic activities were numerous and varied. He was a Seattle city councilman, 1898-1900, a deputy county commissioner, executive secretary of the Rainier Heights Improvement Club and the Federated Improvement Clubs of Seattle, and in 1910 he helped organize the Taxpayers' League of Seattle and served as its executive secretary. Hill died in January of 1935; his obituary appeared in the Seattle Times (a successor to the Daily Press) January 23, 1935; 13:3.

CONTAINER LIST

Box	Folder	Description	# of Items
1	1	Photographs: Helena, ca. 1883; Seattle fire, 1889; Seattle, men injured in Chinese riots ca. 1890.	24
	2-3	Scrapbooks: Seattle politics, 1898.
	4-8	Scrapbooks: Seattle politics, 1899.
	9-10	Scrapbook: Seattle politics, 1900.
	11	Scrapbook: Republican Party politics and the Civil War.
	12	Commonplace book.
		Personal Correspondence
2	13	n.d.	11
	14	1877-1879.	8
	15	1880-1889.	8
	16	1890-1910.	13
	17	1911-1933.	11
		Newspaper Records
	18	n.d.	13
	19	1884-1889.	42
	20	1890-1895.	26
	21	Ledger, 1893-1896.	1
		Improvement Association Papers
	23	Minute and clipping books, 1901-1916.	3
	24	n.d.	50
	25	1901-1903.	61
	26	1904-1906.	57
	27	1907-1915.	73
		Taxpayers' Organization records
	28	n.d.	28
	29	1910-1915.	32
	30	1916-1934.	40
		Addenda
	31	Album of photographs, taken by Wilse Photo, showing installation of water supply system for Seattle, also Volunteers return and Unveiling of Totem pole in Pioneer Square, 1899-1900. 25 photoprints. Ms. inscription: R. H. Thomson to Homer M. Hill.