From Lane Co Oregon

Contents 1 History 1.1 1850s 1.2 1880s 1.3 1910s 1.4 1930s 1.5 1960s 1.6 1990s

History

Election records in Lane County name James Robinson of Shelby County in Ohio as the first Sheriff of the county. But other records indicate that the county's first Sheriff was Vermont native Leonard Howe, who later went on to become the Sheriff of Douglas County in 1866. Howe may have been appointed to serve from the time the county was established on Jan. 28, 1851 until Robinson was appointed a short time later. The information is sketchy on the beginning of law enforcement in Lane County.

The county was named in honor of Joseph Lane, the first Territorial Governor of Oregon. It covers 4,620 square miles from the Willamette Valley to the Pacific Ocean. There are an estimated 273,700 people living in Lane County, making it one of the larger counties in Oregon.

Eighty acres of land near the Willamette River in what is now downtown Eugene were donated to the county by pioneers Eugene Skinner and Charnel Mulligan. Four county courthouses over the years have been built at the square at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Oak Street in downtown Eugene, the county seat of Lane County. The present courthouse was built in 1959 and the adjacent Public Service Building was constructed in 1977.

Lane County adopted the Home Rule Charter in 1962 which became effective on January 1, 1963. The charter allows Lane County to enact local legislation on matters of county concern while still complying with Oregon statutes. It empowers the county to provide services and improvements needed by its increasing population through county service departments and improvement districts.

Eugene is the home of the University of Oregon. The principal industries in the county are agriculture, education, fishing, food processing, logging, manufacturing of wood products, recreation and tourism.

A number of points of interest are listed in Lane County, including Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Bohemia Mines, a number of covered bridges, the Darlington Botanical Wayside, Eugene Conference Center, Eugene's Fifth Avenue Historical District, Heceta Head Lighthouse, Honeyman State Park, Howard Buford Recreation Area, Hult Center for the Performing Arts and McKenzie Pass ski areas.

1850s

Since the early days of law enforcement are sketchy in Lane County, not much is known about Howe, the man believed to be the county's first Sheriff. He apparently came to Oregon from California after the 1849 Gold Rush and left the county in 1853 after serving a short time as Sheriff. Howe was Sheriff of Douglas County from 1862 to 1864. A brick layer, he built the second jail in Douglas County in 1865 and had $25 docked from his pay for the job because the Douglas County Commissioners did not like the roof on the new jail. Records show that Robinson was appointed as Sheriff of Lane County, also in 1851. He served until 1854.

• Robert Fletcher Walker, a Kentucky native who moved to Oregon from Ohio in 1851, was elected Sheriff of Lane County in 1854, serving for two years. He was a surveyor who moved to Dayton in eastern Washington in 1865 after leaving the Sheriff's Office in Lane County.

• James E. McCabe followed Fletcher when he was elected Sheriff of Lane County in 1856, serving until 1858. He was born in Bath County in Virginia and moved to Oregon in the early 1850s from Salt Lake City, Utah after making the trip from Independence, Missouri. A rancher, McCabe later left Oregon and moved to Latah County in Idaho.

• H. H. Howard was Sheriff of Lane County from 1858 to 1860 followed by Joseph B. Meador, who was elected to the office in 1860 and was Sheriff until 1862. Meador was born in Sumner County in Tennessee and later moved to Utah before coming to Oregon in 1851. He went on to become Sheriff of Lane County again from 1866 to 1870. After serving his second term, Meador moved to Grant County in the early 1870s, living on the ShooFly Ranch near Spray.

• Thomas Jefferson Brattain was elected Sheriff of Lane County in 1862 and served until February, 1864, when he resigned. He later went on to become the first Sheriff of Lake County from 1876 to 1878. Brattain was born in Morgan County in Illinois on January 2, 1828 and moved to Oregon in the early 1850s.

• When Brattain resigned as Lane County Sheriff, W. H. Haley was appointed to take his place, serving as Sheriff until 1866. A native of Illinois, Haley was a law clerk for a time in the early 1860s.

• Meador followed Haley for his second time as Sheriff, serving for four years before James Newton Poindexter was elected in 1870, also spending four years as Sheriff of Lane County. Poindexter, a blacksmith, was born in Green County in Illinois in 1830 and moved to Oregon in 1850.

• Stewart B. Eakin Jr. was elected Sheriff of Lane County in 1874 and served for six years -- the longest time yet in the county. A native of Elgin, Illinois, Eakin came to Oregon in 1866 and spent time as a banker. After leaving the Sheriff' s Office, he went on to become a State Legislator in 1882.

1880s

• John M. Shelley, another Illinois native, followed Eakin as Sheriff when he was elected in 1880 and served until 1882. A farmer who lived in the Pleasant Hill area, Shelley came to Oregon in 1852.

• J. R. Campbell was Sheriff of Lane County from 1882 to 1886 followed by J. M. Sloan, who was elected to the office in 1886 and served until 1890. Sloan, an Indiana native who came to Oregon in 1853 and to Lane County in 1871, was a blacksmith.

• James E. Noland served as Sheriff of Lane County from 1890 to 1894 followed by A. J. Johnson, who was elected in 1894 and was Sheriff until 1898. Johnson was born in 1844 in Litchfield County in Connecticut and moved to Oregon in 1871. He was a farmer and worked in merchandise when he was not spending time as Sheriff.

• William W. "Billy" Withers was elected in 1898 to succeed Johnson. He served until February 1903, when he was killed in the line of duty by Elliott Lions. (For more details, see chapter on Sheriffs killed in the line of duty).

• Fred Fisk, a Deputy Sheriff with the Lane County Sheriff's Office, was appointed to take the place of Withers.

• Harry L. Bown followed Fisk as Sheriff of Lane County. He was elected in 1906 and served until 1913. A native Oregonian, he was born near Elmira in 1867. He was a school teacher who later became Lane County Judge. In a write-up in the Eugene Morning Register in 1911, Bown was called a "natural-born manhunter, combining in his makeup those qualities of quiet courage and dogged persistence with tireless energy. Perhaps no Sheriff in the entire state is better informed about the devious ways of the common criminal and the inside workings of the machinery of the law operating to apprehend the crooks than is the name Harry Bown."

1910s

• James Carl Parker had the tough job of following the popular Bown as Sheriff of Lane County. He was elected in 1913 and was Sheriff until 1915, when he left office and was replaced by Dillard Elkins.

• Dillard Elkins was was Sheriff for nearly three years starting in 1915. Prior to his appointment, Elkins was a Deputy with the Lane County Sheriff's Office for five years.

• Frederick G. Stickels was elected Sheriff of Lane County in 1919, serving until 1925.

• Frank E. Taylor followed Stickels as Sheriff when he was elected in 1925 and served until 1929. He was born in Sullivan County in Missouri and later moved to the Eugene area. Bown was back again from 1929 to 1933.

1930s

• C.A. "Tom" Swarts, who succeeded Taylor, was Sheriff two different times. He first served from 1933 to November 1942, when he resigned for military service during World War II. When he came back, he served the second time from 1946 to 1953. Swarts was born in Marseilles, Illinois, later moving to the Springfield area.

• Orval E. Crowe, who was on the Lane County Commission twice, filled in for Swarts while he was in the service.

Swarts was on the County Commission a total of 10 years. He died a year after leaving the Sheriff's Office after suffering a heart attack while driving his car in the Springfield area.

• Edward Woodrow Elder, a Montana native, was elected to succeed Swarts in 1953 and stayed on for eight years, serving as head of Lane County law enforcement until 1961. After he left the Sheriff' s Office, Elder was elected to the State Legislature in 1961.

1960s

• Harry Hayden Marlowe followed Elder, serving as Sheriff of the county from 1961 to 1973. Marlowe brought with him plenty of law enforcement experience. He was a Deputy Sheriff in Contra Costa, California from 1939 to 1941, was on the Anchorage, Alaska Police Department from 1945 to 1946 and the Alaska Highway Patrol from 1946 to 1951. Marlowe signed on with the Lane County Sheriff's Office as a Deputy in 1955.

• David N. Burks was elected Sheriff of the county in 1973. He resigned in May 1991 when he learned he had cancer. He died in August.

1990s

• Robert L. McManus was appointed on May 1, 1991.