Fred L. Wolf
WOLF, BEATON, AINSWORTH
Posted By: Clayton co. Coordinator
Date: 1/5/2007 at 16:59:03
The full text of this biography is on the online encyclopedia of Washington State History. Full source: State of Washington; Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation, Essay 7775, By Laura Arksey, June 06, 2006.
___________________________________________No one better deserves the title “leading citizen” than newspaperman Fred L. Wolf (1877-1957) of Newport, county seat of Pend Oreille County. From the time of his purchase of the Newport Miner in 1907 until his death in 1957, he was the prime mover behind projects crucial to the development of his town, county, state, and the region. Chief among them were the formation of Pend Oreille County, the improvement of early roads, the building of the bridge linking northeastern Washington with northern Idaho, and the construction of Albeni Falls Dam. He also found time for politics, serving three terms (beginning in 1919, 1921 and 1931) as a Republican in the Washington State House of Representatives.
Early Years
Fred Wolf was born on June 14, 1877, of German immigrant parents in Elkader, Iowa. During the Civil War, his father, a saddle and harness maker, was company saddler for the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, then resumed his trade in Iowa. Fred’s brother Oscar recalls: “We boys all had a chance at the menial task of washing and oiling harnesses, which was a big job every spring before farm work got under way.” Fred graduated from the local high school, where he was captain of the baseball team. “His early sand lot days were handicapped by having to be a baby sitter for a squalling brother [Oscar, 14 years younger] parked in a baby buggy on the side lines” (Oscar Wolf).
Even as a very young man, Fred was involved in civic causes. He fostered a farmers’ institute and organized the local farmers to drag the roads along their farms after each rain with the split log method, an effort that presaged his later work in Washington with the Good Roads Movement.
Newport's Newspaper Man
Fred Wolf had begun work as a printer in Elkader 1891 and was publisher of the Elkader Argus from 1901 to 1907. He came to Newport in 1907 and purchased the Newport Miner, from which he retired in 1945. Definitely a hands-on newspaperman, Wolf functioned equally as owner, publisher, editor, and writer. Photographs even show him setting type on the linotype machine acquired in 1918.
A leader in his profession, he was an associate of the Sigma Delta Chi, national newspaper fraternity, a member of the Spokane Press Club and, in 1926, president of the Washington Press Association. Wolf was a thoughtful employer with a loyal cadre of workers. Ralph Braddock, printer and newspaperman, worked with him for over 38 years. Wolf’s brother Oscar was publisher of the Metaline Falls News and Ione Gazette.
In 1910, after his move to Newport, Fred Wolf married Maude (Beaton) Ainsworth, the widow of Dr. Fred Ainsworth. She had moved to Newport with her husband in 1903, from West Union, Iowa, her place of birth. She and Fred Wolf were married in Spokane by the mayor of that city, the Reverend J. W. Henley.
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