The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-01-03
COL.vAN HORND DIES
Veteran Founder of X. C.. Jour-
nal Succumbs to Age.
Was 81 Years OId-GOt Kansas
City Paper in 1855.

Kansas City. Jan. 3.-Colonel Rob-
ert Thompson Van Horn, founder of
the Kansas City Journal and pioneer
journalist and statesman of the mid
die west, died at his home here to-
day. He was 81 years old. Death was
due to the infirmities of age.
Col. Robert Thompson Van Horn
founded the Kansas City (Mo.) Jour
nal and was for forty-one years edi-
tor of that paper. becoming a widely
known figure in American journalism.
Kansas City was a village whose in
habitants numbered only Ats. when
the young Van Horn went there and
bought out the Weekly Enterprise for
$780, in 1856, and changed the name
to the Journal. With the rapid
growth of the place the Journal be-
came one of the hourishing daily
newspapers of the west. When Col
onel Van Horn retired from control of
the paper, in 1895. he was seventy-two
years old, and at his death he was 81,
having been born May 10, 1924.
Son of a Farmer.
Colonel Van Horn was the son of a
Pennsylvania farmer of Dutch and
Scotch-Irish ancestry. His education
was largely of his own endeavor, with
occasional terms at a subscription
school. At l 5 he became apprenticed
in the printing trade and worked at it
for ten years in Pennsylvania. Indiana
Ohio and New York, finally drifting
to Kansas City, to invest what little he
had in the newspaper business for
himself. As an editor he made him
self known as fighter for the prog
ress of Kansas City and Missouri and
his whole career was interviewer with
the history of that remarkable prog
ress.
Colonel Van Horn served the public
not only as an editor, but as a soldier.
as mayor of Kansas City many years
ago, member of the state legislature
and for four terms as the representa-
tive of his people in congress.
His military service was with the
Union army, although in the political
prologue to the Civil war he had been
a prO-slavery Democrat. Secession
made a Union man and a Republican
out of him. He headed a Missouri
regiment which served with distinc-
ton, participating in the battles of Shi-
loh, Corinth and Westport. While in
the field with his regiment he was
called to take a seat in the Missouri
senate, and shortly after the war he
was sent to congress. He introduced
there a bill for the organization of Ok
lahoma territory in 1868, and although,
the territory was not established until
rs years later, it was Colonel Van
Horn who for the first time had in
troduced congress to the now familiar
name of Oklahoma. He disavowed
credit for having coined the name
but said the E. c. Bourinot. a Chero-
kee Indian, had told him it was the
Creek word meaning Red mans land
A Grant Delegate.
For many years Colonel Van Horn
was a delegate to Republican national
conventions and was extremely proud
of the fact that-he was one of 1.-The i'm.
mortal $685." who STOOD for the third
term nomination of General Grant in
the Chica go convention of 1880.
One of Colonel Van Horns newspa-
per "reminiscences included the fact
that his Journal on August 26, 1858,
printed the first article announcing
the discovery of gold in Colorado. He
also recalled the days when the first
telegraph news was received from st.
Louis over a wire completed as far as
Boonville, from which the news was
forwarded by express.
In 1854 Colonel Van Horn was mar
ried to Miss Adela H. Cooley of Meigc
county, Ohio. Four children were
born to them. of whom Richard Van
Horn, manager of the Van Horn es-
tate and a former newspaper man, is
the only survivor. Mrs. Van Horn
died in July, 1910. Since her death
Colonel Van Horn had spent most
of his time at Honeywood, on the out
skirts of Kansas C'itV