Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Devers, Arthur H. January 2, 1858 - 
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Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 26, 2009, 11:55 pm

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     ARTHUR H. DEVERS.  An appreciation of one of Portland's sterling citizens 
and substantial business men is here presented by Fred Lockley, the author of 
the following sketch, published in the Oregon Journal:

     “When Arthur H. Devers starts reading my impressions and observations 
tonight it is a safe bet that he won't lay the Journal down until he finishes 
this article. It is to be hoped that when he lays the paper down after 
finishing this story he will breathe a sigh of mingled relief and satisfaction 
and will not grab his hat and his gat and go gunning for me, for Arthur H. 
Devers is a hard subject to do justice to. When I say he is a 'hard subject' I 
don't mean to indicate that he is 'hard-boiled,' although he tries to create 
that impression, so that no one shall discover that in spite of being hard-
headed he has a soft heart.

     “Arthur Devers was born in Chicago, January 2, 1858.  I cornered him a 
day or so ago in the green room of the Chamber of Commerce and asked him to 
tell me about himself. He started at once to tell me why coffee raised in the 
highlands of Central America is superior to lowland coffee and why his spices —
but I held up my hand and said, 'Hold on. I won't even mention that you are in 
the tea business unless you come through with a story about yourself.' ‘All 
right,' said Mr. Devers, 'Let's make it fifty-fifty—half about coffee, half 
about tea, and the other half about myself. Tell you about my father and 
mother? Well, my father's name was Henry G. d'Evers and when I came to Oregon 
I changed it to Devers. Father left Germany because he had to. He was a 
student in a German university and had thrown himself heart and soul into the 
unsuccessful revolution of 1848, and he preferred to go while the going was 
good rather than take his chances with a firing squad. Father landed a job at 
Buffalo as a bookkeeper, meanwhile continuing his medical studies. In Buffalo 
he met Henriette E. Lampert, whom he married in 1850. He became a physician 
but after going to Chicago started a drug store and later branched out as a 
manufacturing chemist. He was accidentally killed when he was forty-five years 
of age.

     "'There were five of us children, only one of whom is now living — 
myself. I attended the public schools of Chicago and later went to Wisconsin, 
entering Racine College. In 1875 I came west. I worked for my uncle, Frederick 
Roeding, in San Francisco for several years. He was in the importing and 
exporting business. In 1879, when I was twenty-one, I went to work for Folger, 
Schilling & Company. Before long the firm dissolved and I went on the road for 
A. Schilling & Company, making Oregon, Washington and Idaho. After covering 
this territory for a couple of years I bought a half interest with Closset 
Brothers here in Portland and the firm name was changed to Closset & Devers. 
It was forty-five years ago that I became a member of the firm. At that time 
we had one man on the road selling our goods and Joseph Closset made sales 
from a wagon here in Portland. Today we keep from fifteen to twenty salesmen 
on the road.

     “‘When I joined the firm we did a business of about twenty-five thousand 
dollars a year. Our sales last year amounted to over one million, three 
hundred thousand dollars. Forty years ago our factory and warehouse were on 
one floor eighteen by fifty and an annex twelve by fourteen feet. Today we 
occupy a six-story building seventy by ninety feet and have a six-story annex 
thirty-five by fifty feet with a one-story shipping room. When I started in 
business here it was the almost universal practice to adulterate coffee with 
chicory and grain, while most of the spices had a good proportion of cornmeal, 
ground-up almond shells or other substitutes. In those days people wanted a 
ten to fifteen cents a pound coffee and they got it. The best grade of coffee 
then would be considered an ordinary grade today.

     "'The thing that made possible the manufacture and sale of high-grade 
coffees was the introduction of the vacuum coffee can. We were the first firm 
in the Pacific northwest to make use of it. In order to build up a demand and 
retain our reputation we had to put up quality coffee. At about that time the 
long-suffering public became tired of paying for ground-up almond shells when 
it paid for pepper, so congress passed the pure food law. Short-sighted 
manufacturers fought this law, but it has proved as great a boon to the dealer 
as to the consumer. Today the manufacture and sale of adulterated coffees, 
teas and spices is negligible. Of course, there are a few unscrupulous dealers 
who put up low-grade goods and sell them at high-grade prices, but the public 
has become educated to demand good goods when paying good prices for them.'"

     Mr. Devers is president of the firm of Closset & Devers, which now 
specializes in tea and coffee and has discontinued the spice department. They 
are manufacturers, importers and jobbers and feature the Golden West coffee, 
the Nu-Ray-A tea and Golden West Teas. These brands guarantee the superlative 
degree of excellence and have a wide sale. Mr. Devers has devoted deep thought 
and study to the business and its pronounced success is largely attributable 
to his carefully matured plans and executive force. He aided in forming the 
Oregon Manufacturers Association, of which R. D. Inman was the first 
president, and Mr. Devers was the second incumbent of the office. His name 
appears on the directorates of the Oregon Portland Cement Company, which owns 
plants at Oswego and Line, Oregon; the Portland Vegetable Oil Mills Company, 
whose large factories provide the Oriental line with a considerable amount of 
business, regularly sending heavy shipments by this route; and the Oregon Life 
Insurance Company, with which he has been connected in the same capacity since 
its organization. From the time of its inception until the termination of the 
business he was a director of the Open River Transportation Company and in 
association with W. G. McPherson he formed the Alaska Steamship Company, in 
which each invested the sum of ten thousand dollars, while C. S. Jackson also 
aided in financing the project. The company was organized for the purpose of 
promoting trade between Portland and Alaska but the partners were unable to 
get cargoes for their boats and the undertaking proved a failure.

     For thirty years Mr. Devers has served on the transportation committee of 
the Portland Chamber of Commerce, acting as its chairman for a considerable 
period, and is deeply interested in this subject because of its bearing upon 
the development of the Pacific northwest. He labored untiringly in behalf of 
the Celilo canal project and remained a guarantor until the work was 
completed. His time and money have been liberally donated toward the 
furtherance of the Umatilla Rapids project, which will prove of incalculable 
value for irrigation, hydro-electric power and navigation purposes. Mr. Devers 
has noted with much pleasure the progress made by the Harkins Transportation 
Company in its efforts to open the Columbia as far as Hood River by 
maintaining daily automobile deliveries from the boats to the stores, it being 
the only steamship line in the world to establish such service.

     In 1885 Mr. Devers married Miss Ellen H. Gollings, who passed away in 
1911. She had become the mother of one child, Mabel, who is the widow of John 
Plageman, and has two daughters, Jean and Patsy. Mr. Devers' second union was 
with Miss Anne E. Gollings, a sister of his first wife.

     Since their inception Mr. Devers has been a member of Multnomah Athletic 
Club, the Portland Chamber of Commerce, the Portland Golf Club, the Oregon 
Manufacturers Association, the Apollo Club and the Portland Symphony 
Orchestra. His taste for music has been fully developed and to all movements 
for the city's advancement along material, moral and cultural lines he is 
quick to respond. For recreation Mr. Devers turns to traveling and has twice 
circumnavigated the globe. In 1923 he spent six months abroad and availed 
himself of the opportunity to learn how spices are grown, taking special pains 
to visit the Straits settlements, Japan, China, India, Java and other lands 
from which these products are obtained. In the summer of 1927 he purchased a 
round trip ticket on the Canadian Australian line and started on his journey 
June 1. At Vancouver, British Columbia, he boarded a steamer which took him to 
Honolulu and thence to New Zealand. He viewed the beautiful city of Auckland, 
its former capital, and was also at Rotorua, a resort noted for its hot 
springs. In Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, Australia, he saw the most 
beautiful harbor in the world and a modern city with a population of one 
million. Mr. Devers visited the Bulli National Park near Sydney, the Blue 
mountains and the Jenolan caves. He was next in Melbourne with its beautiful 
streets and fine parks and while in Australia enjoyed the tropical fruits and 
many varieties of vegetables which that country produces. Another point of 
interest on his route was Raratonga, the largest of the Cook islands, which 
were named for their discoverer, Captain James Cook, the noted English 
navigator. Mr. Devers also stopped at Papeete, situated on Tahiti, an island 
in the Society Archipelago, the headquarters for bootleggers operating on the 
Pacific ocean, and a short time before his party landed a vessel had left 
there with a cargo of forty thousand cases of champagne to be sold to dealers 
at various points on the coast. On August 5, 1927, Mr. Devers returned to 
Portland after a very enjoyable ocean voyage of fifteen thousand miles, which 
he made in forty-seven days at a cost of five hundred and sixty-five dollars. 
Mr. Devers has just returned, in 1928, from a trip to South Africa, visiting 
on the way the beautiful island of Madeira, and making in South Africa the 
principal towns —- Cape Town, Kimberly, Bloemfontein, Durban, Johannesburg, 
Buluwayo in Rhodesia, and the magnificent Victoria Falls of the Zambezi river. 
Finally, from Beira up the east coast of Africa, through the Suez Canal, the 
Red Sea and the Mediterranean to Marseilles, and from there to Paris, London 
and home. A keen, intelligent observer, he derived much benefit from his 
sojourns in foreign lands and through the accumulation of useful knowledge has 
constantly broadened his outlook upon life. He has aided in pushing forward 
the wheels of progress in Oregon and stands deservedly high in the esteem of 
his fellowmen.

Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 758-760

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