WASHINGTON, July 22.--The attorney general has ordered dissolution of what is commonly known as the Bath Tub Company, which is a combination backed by $100,000,000, and whose actions are felt in almost every home in the United States.
    One of the companies made defendant as a component of the trust is the Union Sanitary Manufacturing Company, which has a large plant at Noblesville, superintended by C. E. Gates.
"Bath Tub Trust to Be Smashed by Federal Act," Indianapolis Sun, July 22, 1910, page 1


    FOR SALE--Fine location for country home; thirty-six acres; only four blocks from courthouse, steam and interurban roads, Noblesville, Ind.; overlooking town and White River; fine cottage, extra-large barn, wind pumps and good fences; all improvements the very best; five acres fine woods; also contains baseball grounds and best half-mile race track in state; price, $300 per acre. Address owner, C. E. GATES, Noblesville, Ind.
Indianapolis Star, December 23, 1910, page 14

    The automobile has come to stay. The demand for it has proven that it is not a fad that will die in time, as it is well known that when a man has once owned a machine, he will never do without one. The time has come when every man in moderate circumstances or with a fair salary wants one and when sold at a legitimate profit can own one. The time is drawing near when fancy prices cannot be asked for a car.
    The average man knows when he is getting value received, and he does not have to refer back many years to remember the prices on bicycles, etc., and to know that he can get as good a bicycle today for $40 as he had to pay $150 for a few years ago. There are as yet too many agents who expect to make a year's salary on the sale of from three to five machines. If you are expecting to buy a car, ask the agent for a catalogue, all manufacturers issue them, and see the price at which they are quoted at the factory, add to that the freight which can be had from the railroad company, and the value of the additional equipment you are to receive, and you can easily find out whether or not you are buying the car at the right price. In buying a car the purchaser should inquire as to the guarantee and satisfy himself as to whether the promised guarantee would hold good. A man selling automobiles should have an established place of business to enable him to back up his guarantee by taking care of his customers and looking after the machines he has sold, as it is an everyday testimonial as to the quality of the car and his word he has given the purchaser as to its durability and efficiency. A satisfied customer is the best asset a dealer can have.
    I am selling cars with a year's guarantee, and when I say this I mean it in every sense of the word. When a man buys a car from me I want him to feel at liberty at any time to drive into my place and have his car adjusted, should it need it, without any cost to him. And should any part break through any defect whatever I will replace it without any cost to him. It has been the general custom that as soon as you sell a man a car, you have no further interest in him and the less you see of him the better, but my idea is to keep in touch with every Overland car, whether I sold it or not. If it is running good I want to know it, and if it is running bad I want to know it. Also if it is running good tell the other fellow, and if it is running bad tell me. I want every man to feel that he is getting his money's worth. When a man feels that he is getting just treatment he will certainly be glad to recommend the seller to his friends. Don't buy a car on the spur of the moment; think it over, investigate for yourself the merits of the different cars, and after you have satisfied yourself as to which is the one to buy, then buy it and not before.

    C. E. Gates, the Overland man, Saturday sold three automobiles to residents of the valley. E. G. Brown of Medford bought a 40-horsepower torpedo body touring car, J. L. Wilson of Griffin Creek purchased a 30-horsepower touring car, and M. M. Root, a newcomer to the valley, also purchased a 30-horsepower car.
Medford Mail Tribune, August 26, 1912, page 3

    C. E. Gates is a live wire. He sizzles and snaps. When he starts to do anything he does it. Although he has been in Medford a short time, he is well known and has made a splendid impression as a capable and enterprising business man.
    Here is his biography in a few words:
    C. E. Gates was born in Monticello, Ind., December 24, 1871. He has had a long and successful career in the line of large enterprises. Early in life he was statistician for the Columbus Construction Company of Chicago, Ill., and later accountant for the Chicago Economic Fuel gas company.
    In 1900 he became receiver's manager for the McElwaine-Richards Company of Noblesville, Ind., a large bathtub factory. He successfully managed this institution, placed it on its feet, reorganized it as the Union Sanitary Manufacturing Company and became its vice-president and general manager.
    For the last ten years his business has been that of taking crippled manufacturing institutions and placing them on their feet. The president of the Indiana State Board of Health states:
    "We know him as a doctor of crippled and embarrassed businesses."
    During his career as a manufacturer Mr. Gates was for several years president of the Enameled Ware Manufacturers Association and vice-president and chairman of the organization committee of the Soil Pipe Manufacturing Association of the United States. He was also president of the school board of Noblesville, Ind.
    Mr. Gates is a member of the Presbyterian Church, an Elk, K. of P., thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner.
Medford Sun, December 15, 1912, page 1


    You can talk about automobiles, but when you are through talking and begin to investigate the qualities and the service, you will finally settle on

    C. E. Gates, the Overland man, has leased the lower floor of the Sparta building, corner Main and Riverside, for a period of three years. This will give him the finest automobile show room and garage in Southern Oregon--one of the finest in the state.
    The Sparta building was built in [1911] by John M. Root and is one of the best built and most artistic structures in the city. Its exterior is glazed white brick. The lower floor is surrounded by plate glass windows and mirrors.
    The front room will be used as an automobile show room by Mr. Gates, with the rear room as repair shop. An extensive line of auto supplies of all kinds will be carried and everything used in automobiling provided.
Medford Mail Tribune, August 29, 1913, page 6


    Who will be the mayor of Medford?
    The answer is still unknown to the general public--and the members of the council are not talking.
    Supporters of C. E. Gates, who filed a petition of several hundred names requesting Gates' appointment, are indignant over the refusal of the council to even consider the petition and talk of calling a mass meeting of citizens to act on the matter.
    Mr. Gates says: "I have not sought the appointment, have not asked anyone to sign a petition, and have taken no part in the efforts made by any friends. I do not expect the appointment--but I cannot understand why the councilmen refuse even to discuss my appointment or to pay any attention to the petition filed in my behalf. At least, they might show the courtesy of a reason for ignoring the petition."
    Only one of the six councilmen is known to be favorable to Gates.
Medford Mail Tribune, September 19, 1913, page 4

    C. E. Gates has secured the agency of the Ford automobile and also the Cole standardized six-cylinder car. He still retains the agency for the Overlands. This will give him three grades of cars: low-priced, medium- and higher-priced, and the finest auto show room in the state.
    Mr. Gates has just returned from Portland, where he placed an order for eighty Ford cars, which he expects to sell during the coming year. The Ford ranks as the best cheap car on the market, the virtues of the Overland are testified to by the fact that it was the best seller in the local market this season. The Cole ranks among the best of its kind.
Medford Mail Tribune, October 10, 1913, page 5




    Earl Fisher of the Gates garage has instituted a new Ford service whereby an auto is rented out by the hour the same as a horse and buggy. The owner furnishes everything but a driver. By this means people with auto driving inclinations but with no machine can be accommodated.
"Local and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, March 30, 1915, page 2


    C. E. Gates Thursday received a carload shipment of eight Fords. Eleven people were waiting for them. Some were so anxious for the machines that they assembled the parts themselves.
"Local and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, July 9, 1915, page 2


    The Stolen Pie, a local comedy with C. E. Gates as hobo, and Lowe Zundel the pretty vivacious cherry-lipped girl who likes to pick them, will be shown at the Star. The film has been dated in Grants Pass, Ashland, Gold Hill and Roseburg.
"Local and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, June 15, 1916, page 2


    C. E. Gates in the "Stolen Pie" will be shown in a few days. It's a scream.
Star Theatre advertisement, Medford Mail Tribune, June 15, 1916, page 2


Medford Mail Tribune, June 17, 1916, page 5

    It was with surprise that business circles in the city learned today that William A. Gates has sold out his minority holdings to the C. E. Gates Auto Company to  C. E. Gates and George Gates, who hold the remainder of the company's stock, and is no longer connected with that concern.
    Mr. Gates, who has been a resident of Medford for the past five or six years, during which time he was connected with the Gates auto concern in which he became a minority stockholder when it was incorporated in March 1917, will after a few weeks' rest with his wife and adopted daughter visit for a month at their old home in the East, after which he will return and look over the Pacific Coast with a view to entering business again.
Medford Mail Tribune, May 13, 1920, page 3


    One Christmas me and my oldest brother, when we were about 10 years old, pestered our father until he gave us a dollar each for Christmas. When we got up, we found a sack of candy and a dollar in our socks, and we went right downtown and proceeded to spend it. About noon we showed up at home, and then came the bluest Christmas I had ever known. I had spent my dollar and had no toys to play with. I managed to get through the day all right, but after that I did not dictate what I was going to get from Santa Claus.
"How I Earned My First Dollar," Medford Mail Tribune, September 16, 1921, page 4


    Charles Edwin Gates is a splendid example of sheer pluck and natural ability and a striking figure of a self-made American. He is now serving as mayor of Medford, and his capability and worth in office are widely acknowledged. He was born in the little town of Monticello, Indiana, in December, 1871, his parents being Jacob and Mary (Hastings) Gates, both of whom were representatives of old pioneer families. His father was engaged in the railroad business and spent thirty-three years of his life in transportation service. When Charles E. Gates was but a youth of tender years, the family removed to Pulaski County, Indiana, and there he obtained a common school education. When but fifteen years of age he taught in a small country school in order to enable him to secure a commercial training in the Hall Business College at Logansport, Indiana. It was not his educational qualifications that secured him the teacher's job at that early age but the recognition on the part of the school directors of the fact that the boy possessed rare executive ability and much self-reliance, and as the school had been changing teachers quite often they gave Mr. Gates the chance to see it he could instill into the pupils some degree of obedience to rules. This he emphatically did, at once giving the pupils to understand who was master in the room.
    Following his graduation from the business college Mr. Gates decided to become a court reporter and for a brief period was in a law office, but that line of activity failed to appeal to him and he secured employment with the Columbus Construction Company, which at that time was engaged in building a pipeline for natural gas from Greentown to Chicago. Entering the company's office as a clerk Mr. Gates in less than four months had so impressed the managers with his natural ability that he was appointed statistician of the entire line. He remained with the company for eight years, a portion of which time was spent as chief accountant in the Chicago office. For several years afterward he was connected with the Economic Fuel Gas Company and in 1897 became associated with the McIlwaine Richards Gas Well & Supply Company, with which he continued in various capacities until 1901, when he was made general manager of the company's plant at Noblesville, Indiana, and held such responsible posts as president of the Bath Tub Manufacturers Association of the United States, vice president and chairman of the organization committee of the Soil Pipe Manufacturers Association and other kindred and mammoth business enterprises. The twelve years which Mr. Gates put in as an active worker in this field so undermined his health as to force his retirement from strenuous duty and in 1912 he came to Oregon seeking rest and health. Visiting Medford, Mr. Gates concluded he could find no better place on the coast and, sending for his family, at once established his home in this city. For a man of his energy and determination something must be doing all the time, so he turned his attention to the automobile business, becoming agent for the Overland cars. Something of his business ability may be seen in the fact that in the first season he sold seventy-seven cars and more than a hundred in the second season. In 1914 he accepted the agency of the Ford Company and since that period has handled only the Ford cars and Fordson tractors. On a prominent corner of the city he has erected a handsome garage and service station of one hundred and forty by one hundred and twenty feet, which is modern in every particular and detail and includes a large display room, accessories store, women's rest room which is fitted up to be of real service to his patrons, one of its many features being cribs for tired infants, repair shop and service station. Nothing has been omitted in the construction of this model garage. Twenty-six persons are employed in the plant, eleven of whom are expert mechanics. While he has developed an important enterprise in this connection Mr. Gates is also the vice president of the Farmers & Fruit Growers Bank of Medford, and in all things he displays sound business judgment as well as unfaltering enterprise.
    Mr. Gates was united in marriage to Miss Leah A. Farnsley, of a well-known pioneer family of Kentucky, and they have become the parents of three children: Eltha Marie, now the wife of J. Wesley Judge of Medford; Laura, the wife of James E. Kerr of Medford; and George E., who is associated with his father in business, the firm name being the C. E. Gates Automobile Company. George E. Gates has a notable war record, having enlisted in 1917. He was sent to Fort Columbia and later to Camp Lewis and in March, 1918, went overseas as a member of Battery E, Sixty-Fifth Regiment. He served with that command throughout the period of active duty in France, the close of the war finding him in an officer's training camp in that country. George E. Gates is a Mason, also a Knight of Pythias and an Elk. He was married and has an infant son, George E., Jr., the mother having passed away.
    The Masonic fraternity has long enjoyed the stalwart and loyal support of Charles E. Gates, who has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and is a member of the Mystic Shrine. While in Noblesville, Indiana, he occupied the post of exalted ruler of the Elks lodge and since coming to Medford was made chairman of the Elks building committee, which erected the handsome Elks Club building and is now chairman of its board of trustees. He was chairman of the Red Cross, also chairman of the Council of Defense and chairman of the Liberty Loan drives during the World war. For two terms he has been the president of the Medford Chamber of Commerce and he is now serving for the third term as mayor of Medford, his administration being characterized by a most businesslike and progressive spirit, productive of splendid results. His religious faith is that of the Presbyterian Church and for the past seven years he has been on the church board at Medford. In a word his activities have had to do with all that tends to advance the material, intellectual, social, political and moral welfare of the city. His efforts have been a most potent force in producing results highly gratifying, and Medford places him among her most valued residents and names him as a splendid example of American manhood and chivalry.
Charles Henry Carey, History of Oregon, 1922, page 378

Medford Mail Tribune, May 31, 1922, page 1


    Their experience of last night encountered on their way home by the Pacific Highway from a visit with friends at Grants Pass will never be forgotten by Mayor C. E. Gates and Mrs. Gates. It was uncanny and thrilling, and is still a mystery. 
    The head of the city and his wife were en route home at 1 a.m. in a big Studebaker Six auto, about a mile and a half this side of Rogue River, going at a twenty-five (censored) mile-an-hour pace, when the powerful flashlights showed a white object ahead in the road. "What can that be?" each exclaimed to the other. It was a moonlight night, and they didn't know, but as they approached nearer the white object was disclosed to be a man, garbed only in white pajamas, red bandanna handkerchief tied about his head, and wearing socks, who was busily engaged running at a swift pace, head to the front and looking neither to the right nor left.
    This greatly puzzled Mr. and Mrs. Gates, who could not account for the man's attire and actions at that hour. Neither did he slow up nor look around or up as the car flew (censored) past him, but maintained his onward speed at the right side of the road. As they passed by Mrs. Gates looked around and saw the man was still running. Was he intent on escaping from a pursuer or pursuers or was he running in his sleep? No one knows.
    While the Medford folks were still speculating on the meaning of the unwonted spectacle, their car came suddenly to a stop two miles on the other side of Central Point, having run out of gas, although its tank had, prior to the trip, been half filled with gasoline. The mayor thinks someone must have partially emptied the tank after it was filled.
    They waited there helpless on the highway, with nerves somewhat at high tension because of the strange sight of the running man they had seen on the highway some distance back, until finally a Ford car out of Central Point came along whose driver, on approaching, shouted out the welcome question, "Is that you, Pop?" However, on measuring his tank it was ascertained that his car had only a little gas. Nothing was left to do but hitch the two cars together in a sort of fashion, by which the big Studebaker was hauled by the little Ford back to Central Point. The fastening line parted just as the garage was reached in that town, but each car was able to swerve out of harm's way.
    The garage was closed, and Central Point at that hour, about 2 a.m., was like a graveyard in its quietness and darkness. Leaving the two cars, Mayor Gates started out to find someone--rather a hopeless seeming task, until quite a distance away he heard a cough around the corner of a nearby building.
    "Please come here out of that, any kind of a man will look good at this time of night," shouted the mayor. Back came the welcome words for the second time that night, "Is that you, Pop?"
    It was the night watchman, who happened to have a key to the garage, from which the Medford car was given an ample supply and the homeward journey continued without further mishap.
Medford Mail Tribune, September 7, 1922, page 3