The Wichita city eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1872-1883, 1876-04-20
LETTERS FROM PROMINENT MEN, AND ITS
RECEPTION BIZ OUR OWN PEOPLE.
What it Cost, and What we Made out Of the
Enterprise.

We haven't the least doubt that many of our
home readers would be interested IN a state
mcnt of the facts connected with the issue OF
our emigration edition two weeks ago. -Four
hundred quires Of paper were used, weighing
1926 pounds, and costing, delivered heres
$l4s.2O. II took our power-press IS hours
continuous running to print both sides. The
four pages contained 1880 ems nonpareil,
1900 ems minion, and 100000 borgeois, total
234, 400 ems Of type, which at the usual rates
cost S93 70 to set up. In ink alone it took
sll.25. The value of the engravings was near
ly $3.50. OF the many minor expenses IT is
unnecessary to speak. Set in ordinary PAM
phlet type and form The contents would have
made pamphlet Of one hundred and fourteen
pages. When it is taken into consideration
that thirty-nine tables of figures were COM
piled, some idea Of the work, time AMI trouble
may be gained.
over and above the copies ordered no extra
number was printed. Nine-tenths of the en-
tire edition was mailed in single wrappers and
sent to eastern friends within ten days. From
three to five extra mail bags, filled with single
wrappers, went cut each night for q week
Harrington, at the news depot, who ordered
800, sold out at ten cents apiece in less than
three days, and afterwards bought of Steele
& Levy.-who had taken thousand-ive
hundred more.
As TO the profits OF the office, they were mi
nus. No business man was charged a cent for
what appeared in the way of compli mentary
notices and no advertisement was admitted so
outside OF the "glory OF the thing" and two
or three weeks OF very hard work, Of course
we made nothing. From three to five thous-
and more copies could have been readily dis
posed of.
or the many eongratulatory letters and no.
tees received, we reproduce, without au-
thority, two letters both interesting and high
ly complimentary, coming as they do from
two as prominent and successful newspaper
men as the State ever boosted. The first is
from the pen of Hon. ID. w. Wilder, present
Auditor of State, and the other from Capt
Henry King, the author of the pretty sketch of
Kansas life to be found on the first page Of this
paper, entitled "Perky's Cross" Following
these letters arc few extracts from leading
papers in the State, TO the editors of which We
make our best bow:
TOPEKA, April 10, ls76.
Hon. NJ. M. MsTdook:
DEAR Suitcase accept my thanks for a copy
of the Centennial EAGLE. II will be carefully
preserved as an honor to Kansas as well as to
Wichita and the Southwest. The history, the il
lustratons, and the sketches of your pioneers are
interesting reading now and will become more
and more valuable as the years roll on.
A ha1 la.. IL laa,, to
in this city. No one can give list of the city
officers for some half dozen years. The Mayors
of those years have been guessed out and proba-
bly, correct; nothing more. The burning of the
Richie block destroyed the city records; the
burning of the Record Office destroyed the files of
that paper. II seems incredible that town so
young MS Topeka should already have lost an i'm
portant link in its history
The burning of the Champion Office DESTROYED
the files of that paper, but the energy of Col.
Martin not to be thwarted and he now has
complete file. He now preserves n copy of the
daily at the office and one at his house. and offers
to give the city file if the officers will give it
fre-proof quarters.
The files, as you well know, of all the early pa
pcrs in Lawrence were burned in the Quantrell
massacre. Mr.. Thacher has no file of his old and
excellent Republican, but believe Robert Elliott
in that county has file. Speer's papers are
gone; also Lowman & Trask's. The old Leaven-
worth Herald, the first paper printed in Kansas,
was burned-the only file in existence-when the
Mercantile Library was destroyed.
Col. Anthony now has more bound volumes Of
newspapers than any other publisher in the State.
think he must now have not less than one hun
dred and twenty such books. They are files more
or less complete Of the Times Conservative Bale
hs, and Commercial. The Office Of the Leayen-
wc-:h zcifsng was also destroyed by fire, and
probably the files with it, This is part Of the
fearful record of destruction already made in so
young State ours We shall have TO rely,
for much OF our history, on the files of the New
York Daily Tribune and ST. Louis Daily Democrat.
Your Centennial EAGLE is so good n record of
your city and county that this paper would
largely compensate for the loss of all the other
Wichita ales, should such an unfortunate fate
overtake them. The spirit of history is abroad
in our State to-day and fully aroused. Within
the last twelve months about fifty of our papers
have published. historical articles, and sull the
good work is going
Very truly yours,
ID. W. WILDER.