The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1915-03-11
RECALLS HIS EARLY DAY
EXPERIENCES OF IDAHO.

Blackfoot, Idaho, Feb 81
Ny Dear Editor:-Last week Is Ex-
aminer, as well as this week 8 issue,
once more bring very wildly to my
mind that times certainly edo fly"
as Josh Billings would say. Yes, it's
more than twenty years now since I
landed in Montpelier, looking for a
chance to make fortune with no mon
ey to start on. The town at that time
was not so inviting as the country
around it was, but everyone whom I
met wanted me to start paper and
encouraged me in every way. It was
not the first trial that had been made,
but the others had, for one reason or
another, been unsuccessful. In other
words the town was sort of newspa-
per graveyard, and while such a repu-
tation generally gives a printer cold
feet when looking for location. con-
TESS it had no terrOrs for me. had al
ready started several newspapers in
such places and made them 20, and
felt l could in this case. There
was part of an old plant there which
John Brennan had been inveigled into
putting three hundred or more dollars
into, and as he stood no chance Of ever
getting any portion Of his money out
of it, unless he could get some one
to "agree" to pay that much some
time for it, he gave me show. John
had very little confidence that I would
ever be able to pay 5000 claim on the
material, but he wanted the town to
have a paper, so he took the chance
On the End of March, 1895 the first
issue came out, and from that small
beginning the present Examiner, with
its power press, power driven job press
es, and all the machinery usually founc
in a modern office, owes it's existence.
At that time, as remember, there
was not a brick structure in town ex
cept the Washington school building
and there was only one stone hous,
there, the old building next to Stevens
new implement house. There were n,
electric lights, water system, higl
school, library, nor hundred othel
modern conveniences that the city nov
enjoys. The east and west portions o,
the town were as distinct in every wa,
from each other Except that all wa
under one city government as the,
would have been if dozen miles O
so apart. The people in one part O.
the place did not know what thos,
of another portion We're doing, an,
few cared. Happily all that is passed
and the two portions are now rapid
ly growing into one solid modern city
city which ought to have, and will
have before long, not less than fiv
thousand people.
The Examiner office in those day
occupied sky scraper(D of building
back Of Bob Gees pool hall. The build
ing is now owned by the city and OF
its lot opposite the pavilion. 1t was on
office, printing plant and sleepin,
room, and it was here that the cats
named in last week 8 paper, used t.
make Rome howl on the fence benin,
the building. We were not married the
and we were very (O Jealous of on
night $ rest.
From our first day in Montpelier W
have loved the old town and all it
people, and | am not certain that eithe
my wife or myself will quite be salts
fled to permanently make our home a
any other place, when we finally settl
down for the balance Of our lives.
/ wish to thank you for the com
pliments you paid me in the last issue
in speaking about it being the Exam
iner's birthday, and while l probabl
never deserved all that you gave m
credit for, still l will say that it wa
not any snap running that paper durin
its infantile years, so to speak. Blu
it has survived long enough to see
splendid little city grow up, and tn
paper itself is and has long been con
sidered one of Idaho''s staunch an
bright weeklies.
May you and the paper long continu
to prosper.
Respectfully,