Silverton native son Homer Davenport was an internationally known cartoonist in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Born in Waldo Hills March 8, 1867, Davenport left Silverton to make is way in the world. He spent time with a circus – but left when asked to oil the elephant. He headed to San Francisco and went to work as a newspaper artist, becoming a political cartoonist with the Hearst papers as his skills were recognized.

According to his obituary, Davenport “did for San Francisco what Thomas Nast did for New York,” helping bring down political bosses.

He also worked for Hearst in New York, taking on the political establishment. His cartoons frequently focused on the sugar, tobacco and oil trusts taking advantage of Uncle Sam and Labor, of the average man. He would have found the Enron- and WorldCom-laden business pages of today familiar and fertile ground for his political cartoons.
His talent earned him prominence and a tidy income, allowing him to pursue his interest in Arabian horses. He had a farm near Morris Plains, N.J.

Davenport published a collection of his cartoons in 1898. In 1910 he published “The Country Boy,” a book about growing up in Silverton. This year Powells Press put “The Country Boy” back in print. According to researcher Walt Curtis, Davenport’s impact on his times can be compared to that of Garrison Keiler or Norman Rockwell.

“He was incredibly influential – he helped elect Teddy Roosevelt with his cartoon .”

Davenport died at age 45 of pneumonia in New York, three days after drawing a cartoon about the sinking of the Titanic. His headstone is in Silverton Cemetery.