1944 President E. Newton Bates

E. Newton Bates, the tenth President of the Geological Society of the Oregon Country, was born on a farm In Dorr Township, Allegan County, Michigan, in 1879. He lived on the farm until his father, after whom he was named, went into the general country store business in the neighboring small town of Moline, which is located fifteen miles south of Grand Rapids on the Pennsylvania Railroad. While working in his father's store he developed a small bicycle repair business and he was the "trouble shooter" for the Citizens Telephone Company, which maintained a country telephone exchange in his father's store.

E. NEWTON BATES

He spent two years in the college preparatory department of Olivet College, Olivet, Michigan, and completed one year in the scientific course of the college. He then changed to the Michigan State College at East Lansing, from which he was graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 1906. In 1913 he was granted an M.S. degree from Michigan State College. After graduation he accepted a position as instructor in physics at the college, and three years later a position in Boston, Mass., with the engineering firm of D.C. and William B. Jackson. While employed in Boston he married Miss Cora L. Brown, a girl from his Michigan home town.

The Bates's next moved to New York City, where E.N. was employed as draftsman in the construction department of the Standard Oil Company at 26 Broadway. In 1912 they moved to State College, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Bates was assistant professor in mechanical engineering.

In 1918 Mr. Bates resigned his teaching position to accept a position as scientific assistant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  This proved to be his last change of employers, but by no means his last change of address. In 1920 he was transferred to Portland, Oregon, to take charge of the office of Grain Investigations for the Pacific Coast.  One of the duties he assumed was to encourage the handling of grain in bulk instead of in sacks. Raymond L. Baldwin was one of his able assistants in this work while the office was located in Portland.

In 1927 the office was moved to San Francisco with Bates in charge and its name changed to Office of Rice and Grain Investigations.  Problems of efficient production, storing and marketing of rice were added to the other duties.

After nine years in San Francisco, the office was discontinued and the Bates's were transferred to Portland in 1936 to be attached to the Pacific Coast Headquarters Office of Federal Grain Supervision to have charge of developments, maintenance and standardization of the mechanical equipment used in the Pacific Coast Grain Supervision Offices.

Upon returning to Portland one year after the birth of the Geological Society of the Oregon Country his good friend Raymond L. Baldwin introduced him to that enthusiastic group of professional and amateur geologists.  Mr. Bates says that his interest in the Society has centered more in the geologists than in geology. The great variety of beautiful rock formations attracts him more than their industrial use and the classification phase of the science.

The Bates's have a daughter, Eleanor B., who is married and lives in San Francisco. Bates claims that Franklin Davis bamboozled him into accepting the nomination as president for the Society by telling him that every so often the Society was expected to elect a rank amateur to its highest office.

Mr. Bates retired from Government service in March 1949 and in May of that year was awarded a medal for superior service, and was called to Washington, D.C., at government expense to accept the award.