The herald., 1894-03-22
BREEZY JOURNALISM.
THE FIRST DAILY PAPER ESTABLISH
ED IN LEADVlLLE.

Its Pathway Was Rough and Stony-Twen-
ty Hours Work a Day For Editor and
Manageable Job Office Was a veritable
Bonanza-Prices No object.
In 1878 Leadville had no newspaper
worthy the name, and people were
gathering there by the thousands. AT
that time / was the foreman of the Den
yer Tribune, and in looking the situa-
ton over l became. in common witk
scores of others, possessed of a desire to
fill ono of the long felt wants of the new
community. After talking it over with
a couple of fellow printers and figuring
up the cost we agreed on a local habi-
tation and name.
There was no such thing rs q house ti
be lad in Leadville at that time. l
couldn't even find a room. Finally / Sc
cured lot from a squatter out on Har-
rlson avenue. It was way off in the sage
brush, and l selected it because it was
choap. After great deal of difficulty
and using what influence l could with
the sawmills l got together lumber
enough to build a one room house to ac-
commodate the paper. 1t was almost
impossible TO get carpenters or people
who would do any kind of labor. Ev-
erybody W as in pursuit of carbonates.
However, after something of a strug-
gle the house was put up, and was no.
tilted of the shipment of the Office ap-
purtenances from the st. Louis type
foundry. Being practical printer and
aware of our somewhat straitened finan-
cial condition, the purchasing partner
had bought just enough of the various
kinds of material to get out small
daily, which we called The Evening
Chronicle.
One partner was made business man
ager, second took the mechanical de-
partment, while was selected to do the
editing. l was managing editor, city
editor, telegraph editor, set up little
type, made up forms and attended to
few other trifes. All of us worked to-
gether almost increasingly day and
night.
Hundreds of firms were being estab-
lished in Leadville with not a line of
printed matter in any shape-not a let
terhead or even a card. We had less
than $25 in our treasury when we print
ed our first issue and knew we must de-
pend on our job Office for a revenue. We
got it.
1t was not How much does it cost?"
in Leadville at that time, but How
soon can havo itf' We knew how to
give if, 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 assisted with the job
work at night, ran presses, sawed wood
and kept up fires AS a sample Of
charges l will tell you of one order we
filled.
We had no particular hours of labor,
hut were generally on our feet from 16
to 90 hours out of the "a. After days
work of this kind we were just shutting
down one night when a gentleman came
in and said he wanted 20 cards printed
Immediately. He was running some sort
of game at Tom Kemp's theater, and
this game required cards with figures,
one figure to card. He said he didn't
care what they cost SO he had them by 8
o'clock. 1t was then about 7. and we
accommodated him. He was waiting
when the messenger, who was armed
with the bill, arrived.
"Have you got them?" he said. "How
much are they?"
The messenger was afraid the man
would fall down if he pronounced the
amount, so he handed over the bill The
sporting man pulled from his pockets
wad of greenbacks and handed over two
tens and a ive--$25 for % cards. AS
the messenger started to go away the
man said: Hold on. Now, look here,
I'm a mbler-that's the way make
my living but isn't this bill just lit
tie high?"
You needed TO know something about
running a newspaper in those days.
There was no lack of material, but it
was not all easy sailing in a mixed
crowd aggregating some 40, people
from all parts of the world and all
classes of society. There was not what
could be called large proportion Of
evangelists in the crowd either.
One day we were notified that we
would have to move. In fact. force of
men presented themselves and declared
their Willingness and intention to assist
US in the speedy transfer of our goods
and chattels to green fields and pastures
new. They didn' have furniture vans,
but they had some very ugly looking
guns sticking out of their pockets. We
didn see it that way, SO Davis slipped
out and got two or three rifles and as
many more revolvers and came back.
We closed the doors and announced
our intention of remaining where we
were. This kind Of thing was repeated
several times, but finally quiet was re-
stored, our title resting in our firearms.
I had paid 500 for that lot, and it was
now worth $40, 200; hence the conten-
tion.
believe have written more murders
and shootings in given length Of time
than any other newspaper man in the
country. One day we had four, which
we spread out over four editions of the
paper, the issue which consolidated the
four having scare head in type an
inch long, "Hell Let Loose.
While Leadville at that time was
pretty rough, with plenty of shooting