A bit of mystery clouds Ontario’s incorporation effort
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, September 28, 2008 12:15 AM PDT
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| Photo courtesy Hugh Lackey
While the landscape is recognizable, this picture of downtown Ontario from 1910 shows a very different city than what exists today. While the city was founded in 1883, its incorporation date is a lot harder to pin down as some sources say 1896 and others 1899. Both answers may be correct, but why that is may never be answered. |
ONTARIO—When did the City of Ontario become a municipal corporation by officially incorporating?
The date of Ontario’s foundation may actually be easier for the city to celebrate than its incorporation because, according to different sources, Ontario incorporated in two different years.
According to the Oregon Blue Book, Ontario incorporated in 1899, whereas other sources state Ontario’s incorporation was actually in 1896.
That Ontario incorporated at all is a newsworthy event in its 125-year history regardless of which year it took place, but because of the mystery behind its actual incorporation date, it becomes all the more significant.
The confusion behind the incorporation dates may actually be easy to understand, as well as the lack of information by local historians and city officials regarding the real answer. And, as it turns out, the incorporation date of 1896 as well as the 1899 date may both be correct.
According to two different documents at the Oregon State Archives, Ontario incorporated in 1896 and in 1899.
The first document for the articles of incorporation for the city is in 1896 when the Malheur County Court acknowledged a vote to incorporate the town of Ontario — 27 in favor, 3 opposed — named the city’s mayor and aldermen as well as the marshal, treasurer and recorder, and declared the town incorporated by Oregon statutes of 1893. That document was signed by county officials Sept. 9, 1896, and was signed by Oregon’s Secretary of State on Sept. 12, 1896. Two days later, Sept. 14, 1896, the Ontario Board of Aldermen, under Mayor E.H. Test, the city’s first mayor, passed the city’s initial ordinances — the issuance of license permitting people to sell “spirituous, malt and vinous” liquors. The first recipient of the license was to J.H. Wright, who prompted the ordinance to be enacted.
According to the Malheur County Web site, under Test’s leadership, the first jail was built in Ontario for $100.
The city’s first trees were also planted during Test’s administration.
For whatever reason, however, according to the state law book, Ontario incorporated as a city in 1899 through an act of the Legislature. That document included the city’s charter and recognized the need for the city to incorporate, but also stated all of Ontario’s previous ordinances, elected leaders and monies collected would carry over.
Stephen Beckham, history professor at Lewis and Clark College and specialist in Pacific Northwest history, said, at the time, the incorporation of cities in Oregon required an act of the Legislature through recognition of the city’s charter, which was what the 1899 document accomplished. However, he said, it is possible the 1896 election and the city’s incorporation document may have actually been the first step in the process, announcing the intention to incorporate, and for whatever reason, state lawmakers did not take any official action in the form of an act of legislature until it met in the next biennium, signing off on the articles of incorporation Feb. 11, 1899.
The fact Ontario announced its incorporation first as a town and then as a city may or may not have played into the 1896 and 1899 actions. Don Hamilton, Oregon Secretary of State director of communications, said in Oregon, at least currently, cities or towns are either incorporated or unincorporated, and the state does not differentiate between the title of city or town in terms of powers.
“In Oregon, you simply have one or the other,” Hamilton said.
It is not clear whether the state did differentiate between cities or towns in any specific way or why that might have required two separate incorporations in 1896 and in 1899.
Local historian Eunice Guerrant, who was not aware of the two different years of incorporation for Ontario, said other places differentiate through population, although she is not sure if Oregon did at the time. If it did, however, she suggested it may be possible Ontario grew to such an extent between 1896 and 1899 it may have had to incorporate again as a city if it crossed some threshold.
Tom Stave, head of the document center at OSU libraries, said the 1893 law regarding incorporation does not clearly distinguish between cities or towns through any definitions, but simply refers to both throughout the document without specifying what any distinction may be. At least, according to census records of the early 1900s, population may not have played a part in what a city was called, Stave said.
According to the 1900 census, Ontario is still referred to as a town, although census takers apparently were not aware of an upgrade to the city, and the population was listed as 445 persons, which was about doubled from 1890. Harney City, however, only had a population of 82 in 1900, and Medford, he said, was called Medford Town, and had a population of 1,700.
“So there’s no population-related pattern here to the naming of it, as far as I can tell,” Stave said.
Newspapers, both he and Beckham said, may be the best clue behind the two incorporation dates, but Stave also pointed out, the mystery may never be solved. Regardless, one Ontario official finds the two separate incorporation dates to be more interesting than anything else.
Current Mayor Joe Dominick said the situation appeals to him and lends the city an air of mystery. Except for the possibility of the first 1896 document not being legal in some way, he can’t think of any reason why the city would incorporate again in 1899.
“I think it’s interesting,” he said. “It’s great. It gives some flavor to the history. I’m not a history buff, but it’s interesting.”
