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Off beat Oregon: When the governor’s
secretary imposed martial law on three saloons.
By Finn J.D. John
for The Sentinel
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A
ll Oregonians owe
former Gov. Oswald
West a debt of grati-
tude for saving Oregon’s beach-
es from being locked away in
private ownership.
But the progressive “father-
knows-best” impulses that
inspired West to take that ac-
tion didn’t always lead in such
positive directions. Th ere were
other events during West’s gov-
ernorship when he came out
looking positively fascistic —
perfectly willing to disregard
the rule of law when it con-
fl icted with his own opinion of
what was morally right.
And that is how progressive
hero Os West came to be the
only governor in state history
(so far as I have been able to
learn) to actually issue an An-
drew Jackson-style command
to the Oregon National Guard
ignore a legally issued court
order.
Here’s how this happened...
I
n the fi rst few years of the
20th century, the Baker
County town of Copperfi eld
was platted, near Baker City.
It was originally a small cop-
per-mining town; but by 1907
or so, Copperfi eld was more or
less a construction camp: a pair
of very long tunnels were un-
der construction nearby, one
by the predecessor of the Idaho
Power Company and the other
by a local railroad.
Th e town quickly developed
a reputation for lawlessness. At
its peak, it boasted 11 saloons,
11 brothels, two hotels, three
stores, and a four-cell jail-
house/drunk tank with a dance
hall on the second fl oor.
But then, starting early in
1910, the construction workers
started leaving. Th e railroad
tunnel was fi nished; the pow-
er plant soon was too. By late
1913 the town had dwindled
from 1,000 or so residents to
just 100 or so. But this left the
town’s saloons and bordellos all
gasping for business.
Th e majority of them quiet-
ly closed their doors. But the
owners of the others — three
saloons, and possibly some of
the brothels as well — quickly
realized that they could turn
Copperfi eld’s reputation to
their advantage, drawing visi-
tors from nearby Baker City for
a good time, the way Los Vegas
does with Los Angeles. And
this is where things started to
go badly for them.
It turned out that, out of the
100-odd residents of the town,
at least half did not approve of
the saloon and bordello own-
ers’ new “sin tourism” busi-
ness model. Th eir complaints
to Baker County Sheriff Ed
Rand having gone unheeded,
they sent a petition to Gover-
nor West with 50 signatures
on it. Th ey complained that
the saloons were selling booze
on Sundays and hosting illegal
gambling. (Th ey didn’t men-
tion the prostitution in the pe-
tition.)
West, a committed Prohi-
bitionist who was at that very
moment working to get booze
outlawed in Oregon, was very
sympathetic. He promptly is-
sued an order to Rand to close
the saloons by Dec. 26.
Rand, as an elected offi cial,
did not answer to the gover-
nor, so the order had no le-
gal weight; but he tried to be
diplomatic about it. What law
should he invoke, he asked the
governor? None of the resi-
dents were willing to be wit-
nesses against the saloons in
court, so he couldn’t get a court
order to close anyone. Without
a court order, he couldn’t legal-
ly close any business.
“Th at,” writes historian Gary
Diehlman dryly, “was not the
answer that West wanted to
hear.”
So West announced his in-
tention to send his secretary,
Fern Hobbs, to impose martial
law on the town.
Now, Fern Hobbs was 30
years old in 1913, but she
looked about 22. She was a
slender, petite woman, bespec-
tacled, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with
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a classically beautiful, girlish
face. She would have looked
rather like a cute young school-
teacher or librarian — if it
weren’t for those steady, steely
eyes. Th e fact was, she was no
ordinary secretary. As most
historians have over the years
neglected to mention, she was
a licensed and practicing at-
torney (Willamette Universi-
ty, Class of ’13). She was also,
incidentally, the highest-paid
woman in public service in the
United States.
Overall, Fern Hobbs, J.D.,
was the ultimate stealth pack-
age. When she stepped off the
train car in Copperfi eld, the
local businessmen had no idea
what was about to hit them.
gality could be probed.
Th at’s when Oswald West
issued his infamous order to
Lawson to ignore the court and
carry on.
Lawson, worried about get-
ting arrested by Sheriff Rand
for contempt of court, request-
ed and got reinforcements.
Th ey stayed in Copperfi eld, en-
forcing martial law, for several
weeks.
In Baker City, there was a
distinct note of fear in the cov-
erage of this unfolding aff air.
“MARTIAL LAW FOR BAK-
ER NEXT,” screamed a two-
inch-tall headline on the front
page of the Baker City Morn-
ing Democrat shortly aft er the
raid.
“If the power and authority
of our civil courts is to be thus
treated,” wrote the editor of
the Morning Democrat, “then
we certainly have a czar in the
gubernatorial chair in Salem
whose word and command
is law, and we had just as well
abolish our courts and turn
over all aff airs of state to the
executive.”
Th e whole aff air fi nally made
its way to court in Baker, where
the judge ruled that courts
could not forbid a governor
from declaring martial law, but
that the saloon owners could
fi le a civil lawsuit and collect
damages aft erward if a gov-
ernor did so inappropriately.
Whether they pursued this
or not, I have been unable to
learn.
Th e saloons never reopened;
in 1914, the voters of Oregon
approved Prohibition, so there
wouldn’t have been much
point. And the next year, a
fi re of suspicious origin swept
through the business district,
dealing the fi nal coup de grace
to the town of Copperfi eld. To-
day the old town site is a park
operated by Idaho Power.
I
n what must have been
intended as an attempt to
charm the “secretary,” the locals
had decorated the town with
copious amounts of bunting
and pink and blue ribbons, and
a small welcoming committee
of city councilmen stood by to
greet her, each holding a bou-
quet of fl owers, as she stepped
onto the platform.
Th eir fi rst nasty shock must
have been the fi ve armed and
grim-faced Oregon National
Guard offi cers who stepped off
the train aft er her.
Hobbs declined the prof-
fered bouquets, but handed
each City Council member a
letter of resignation to sign.
(Remember, these were elect-
ed offi cials, not gubernatorial
appointees.) Th ey all, of course
refused to step down.
At that, Hobbs declared the
town under martial law, or-
dered National Guard Col.
B.K. Lawson to impose it, and
took the 4 o’clock train to Baker
City — where she checked into
the Geiser Grand hotel and re-
buff ed all attempts to contact
her.
Lawson and his troops then
proceeded to padlock all the
saloons and confi scate all the
liquor, weapons and gambling
supplies in Copperfi eld.
Saloon owners Henry Stew-
art and William Wiegand (the
town’s mayor and one of its
city councilors, respectively)
promptly fi led a suit to stop
the confi scations. A circuit
court judge fi led an injunction
to stop the process while its le-
(Sources: Dielman, Gary.
“Copperfi eld” and “Copper-
fi eld Aff air, 1913-1914,” Th e
Oregon Encyclopedia, ore-
gonencyclopedia.org;
Baker
City Morning Democrat, Dec.
1913-Jan. 1914; Albany Demo-
crat, Jan. 1914)
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