the portland "morning oregonian" of may 4, 1888, reported that a newspaper called the "enterprise", intended to rival the size of the "seattle post-intelligencer", was incorporated with $25,000 capital by piper with w.e. lockard, h.f. jones, j.c. mavel and j.f. mcdonald, just over a year before the great seattle fire. after the fire he ran a bakery in a tent in nome, alaska, for two years, then returned to seattle as a farmer and orchardist. their farm on pipers creek was founded c. 1880.