EDSON & IRISH EPHEMERA COLLECTION
of historic flyers and advertisements.

John Edson arrived in Whatcom (later Bellingham) in 1888 to become editor of the Whatcom County Democrat. Two years later Edson started his own daily newspaper, the Morning Gazette. Stelle Irish came to Bellingham Bay in 1889 after working for ten years as a printer with the New York Times. After a brief career in starting a livery stable, Irish teamed up with Edson to create the printing firm of Edson & Irish.

The company also printed the ballots for local elections. In 1892 Irish is listed as a Republican and Edson as a Democrat on the ballots for delegates to the county conventions. Edson & Irish had printing contracts for both parties and, though the two men were in opposing political camps, party affiliation apparently took back seat to a successful business relationship.

Among their many accomplishments, Edson & Irish published Ella Higginson’s first collection of poems, "A Bunch of Western Clover", in November 1894. Ella Higginson was a local poet, and was later to be named poet laureate of Washington State.

John Edson retired from the printing business in 1906. He went on to be the Registrar at the Normal School (now Western Washington University), and a founder and the first director of the Bellingham Public Museum, today’s Whatcom Museum.

Stelle Irish continued in the printing trade for another decade after Edson left. In 1917, Arthur Miller and Walter Sutherlin bought the Irish Printing Company. Because of Irish’s outstanding business reputation, the new owners didn't change the company’s name to "Miller & Sutherlin" until 1925.