Robert William Sawyer (May 12, 1880 – October 13, 1959) was an American politician who was a prominent figure and a respected conservationist in Oregon.
He was born in Bangor, Maine on May 12, 1880. He studied law at Harvard. In 1912 he moved to Bend, Oregon where he started working at the Bend Co. sawmill. Here he met George P. Putnam, the publisher of the Bend Bulletin. From this friendship, he soon became a news writer for the Bend Bulletin.
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Sawyer purchased Putnam’s interest in the Bend Bulletin after Putnam became secretary to Governor James Withycombe, and in 1919 assumed the role of editor. During his years in this post, Sawyer became one of the state’s leading newspapermen. From 1927 to 1929 he served as president of the Oregon State Editorial Association. He remained editor until 1953 when the Bend Bulletin was sold to Robert W. Chandler.[1]
Sawyer was involved in the split of Deschutes County from Crook County in 1917.
Always an avid outdoorsman, he served as a director of the American Forestry Association and on the Pacific Northwest Regional Forestry Advisory Council. During the 1950s he was a member of the Hoover Commission Task Force on Water Resources and Power. Sawyer died of a heart attack on October 13, 1959. A former Oregon state park (now a city park) near Bend is named for him.[2]