Rogue River Monopoly

Abstract

Thistle at Rogue River on June 1, 1893. Her master, Captain Frederick Schwarz, had aboard a cargo of general merchandise that he intended to use in the service of his employer, the Alaska Packers Association, to break the unique monopoly of Robert Deniston Hume.' Upon debarking from the Thistle, the Captain announced a schooner would soon arrive carrying material for salting and barreling the salmon that were the economic foundation of the lower Rogue region and the chief source of the fortune of R. D. Hume, the King of the Rogue. As a young man of 19 years, with one dollar in his pocket, R. D. Hume reached California in 1864, joined his brothers George and William on the Sacramento River, and with them was the first on the Pacific Coast to can salmon successfully.2 In 1866, because of the depletion of the Sacramento runs, the three Hume brothers pioneered the large-scale development of the Columbia River salmon canning industry, and, joined by another brother, Joseph, they separately erected several canneries on that broad river of the North. Here R. D. Hume prospered in the decade 1866-1876, operating canneries at Astoria, Bay View, Eagle Cliff, and Rainier on the Columbia. In 1876, however, Hume's wife died shortly after the death of their son. Saddened by this tragedy, which occurred only five years after the death of his infant daughter, the young canner left the Columbia to seek a region where he could rebuild his physical and mental powers.' The following year he bought a small fishery at Gold Beach, Oregon, at the mouth of the Rogue River. There he built salmon hatcheries, and subsequently expanded his business ventures into lumbering, mining, wool, tanbark, ranching, and the operation of a general store.