The Portland daily press., 1894-01-05
LEADViLLE'S FIRST NEWSPAPER.
Where the Fellow who Inquired for the
Editor was AlarmingIy Frequent.

[John Atkins in Kate Fields Washington
In 1878 Leadville had no newspaper
worthy the name, and people were gath
ering there by the thousands. At that
time / was the foreman of the Denver
Tribune, and in looking the situation
over became, in common with scores
of others, possessed of a desire to fill one
of the long-felt wants of the new COM
munity. After talking it over with
couple of fellow printers and figuring up
the cost, we agreed. on local habitatlon
and. a name, and having all the other
requisites we set about raising funds.
This necessary preliminary over-we had
barely three thousand dollars in ALL
went to Leadville to look UP location.
There was no such thing as house to
be had in Leadville at that time; I
couldn't even find room. Finally I Sc.
cured a lot from squatter out on Harri-
son Avnenue. 1t was way off in the sage
brush and I selected it because it was
cheap. After a great deal of difficulty
and using what influence | could with
the saw mills | got together lumber
enough. to build a one-room house to
accommodate the paper. 1t was almost
impossible to get carpenters or people
who would do any kind of labor; every
body was in pursuit OF carbonates How
ever, after something of struggle the
house was put up, and was notified of
the shipment of the office appurtenances
from. the.St Louis type foundry. Being
a practical printed. and aware of our
somewhat straitened financial condition,
the purchasing partner had bought just
enough of the various kinds of material
to get.out a small daily, which we called
The Evening Chronicle. 1t took our
material about a month by freight from
St. Louis to Colorado Springs, and from
here it had to be pulled by team, freight
ers asking all the way from five to
twenty cents pound, so that cost of
transport it from Colorado Springs to
Leadville was about the cost of the ma
terialsin. ST. Louis.
One partner was made business man.
ager, a second took the mechanical de-
partment, while I was selected to do the
editing. 1 was managing editor, city
editor, telegraph editor, set up a little
type, made up forms and attended to
few other trifles. All of us worked to-
gether almost increasingly day and night
Hundreds of firms were being estab-
lished in Leadville with not line of
pIiHOCu lldUbcI III an Sndp6. HOU d. lcU-
ter-head or even a card. We had less
than twenty five dollars in our treasury
when we printed our first issue, and
knew we must depend ON our Job office
for revenue. We got it, 1t was not
How much does it COST" in Leadville
at that time, but How soon can I have
it," We knew how to give it and we
learned how to charge. Everybody else
was doing the same thing, each in his
own line of business Our stock of Job
papers was limited, and correspondingly
short counts were given to customers.
The editor and business manager assist
ed the job work at night, ran presses,
sawed wood and kept up fires. AS a
sample of charges will tell you of one
order we filed.
We had no particular hours of labor,
but were generally ON our feet from
sixteen to twenty hours out of the
twenty-four. After days work of this
kind we were just shutting down one
night when a gentleman came in and
said he wanted twenty-five cards printed
Immediately, We pleaded with him to
wait until the next day, but he must
have them that night, and wanted them
inside OF an hour. He was running
some sort of game at Tom Kemp's
theatre, and this game required cards
with figures, one figure to a card He
said he didn't care what they cost SO he
had them by nine O'Clock; it was then
about seven, and we accommodated
him. He was waiting when the mes