Physician and Inventor
By Steve Lent, Crook County Historian
Dr. Charles S. Edwards was among the early doctors of Central Oregon and became one of the leading citizens of Prineville. He was born in Moline, Illinois on February 21, 1873. He grew up in Illinois and decided to join the medical profession and he delivered newspapers and did janitor work to pay tuition to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He received his A.B. degree in 1895 and a medical degree from the University of Oregon in 1902.
The young doctor came to Prineville in 1903 and formed a partnership with long time local doctor H.P. Belknap. He married Ethel King in Prineville in 1904 and they later had two daughters.
He took his civic duties seriously and was elected mayor of Prineville in 1910 and again in 1915. The arrival of the telephone to Prineville led to Dr. Edwards serving as the secretary of the newly formed Pioneer Telegraph and Telephone Co. based in Prineville Additionally he served on the local school board and he became the Crook County health officer in 1905 and served in that capacity until 1914.
During World War I he was commissioned a captain in the Army Medical Corps in the last months of the war. He invented the Edwards combination pliers and wrench on which patients could be held. It apparently was a popular invention but certainly arouses ominous feelings. He was an active physician in Prineville until he moved to Redmond in 1926.
Dr. Edwards’ wife was active in local affairs also and taught pupils piano lessons and had several piano recitals for her students in Prineville. She continued to live in Prineville teaching piano lessons after her husband moved to Redmond and followed him there in 1928.
His duties as a doctor ranged far afield in Central Oregon with his first patients often being tended to in the country by horse and buggy and later automobile. He was the attending doctor for many births in Prineville at the old hospital on 2nd Street in the former home of George Cornett.
Dr. Edwards passed away in Redmond on September 15, 1929 after a bout of illness. He was only 55 years old at the time of his death. His body was sent to Portland where it was cremated. His passing left a gap in the medical community of Central Oregon.