Evening star., 1916-01-03
COL. R. 7. VAN HORN DIES
IN NINETY SECOND YEAR
Founded Kansas City Journal in
1855, When Town Had Only
478 Inhabitants.
Printed First Story of Discovery of
Gold in California-Served
in Union Army.

KANSAS CITY, Mo-. January 3.-Col
Robert Thompson Van Horn, founder
|of the Kansas City Journal and pioneer
Journalist and statesman of the middle
west, died at his home here today. Hs
was ninety-one years old. Death was
due to the infirmities of age.
| Col. Van Horn was for forty-one
years editor of the Journal and became
| a widely known figure in American
Journalism. Kansas City was village
whose inhabitants numbered only ATS
when the young Van Horn went there
and bought the Weekly Enterprise for
$500, in 1855, and changed the name tc
the Journal. With the rapid growth
| of the place the Journal became one OF
the flourishing daily newspapers of the
west. When Col. Van Horn retired from
control of the paper, in 1896, he was
jseventy-two years old, having been
born May 10, 1924.
Born in Pennsylvania.
Col. Van Horn was the son of Penn
sylvania farmer of Dutch and Scotch
irish ancestry. His education was
largely of his own endeavor, with oc-
casional terms at a subscription school,
At fifteen he became apprenticed in the
printing trade and worked at it for ten
years in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio
and Naw York, finally drifting to Kan
sas City to invest what little he had
in the newspaper business for himself.
AS an editor he made himself known as
"a fighter for the progress of Kansas
lCity and Missouri and his whole ca
ireer was interviewer with the history
of that remarkable progress.
Col. Van Horn served the public not
only as an editor but as soldier. as
mayor of Kansas City many years ago.
1at- 6n tot IntT 1Cl ft1ra a r1d
for four terms as the representative of
his people in Congress.
His military service was with <he
Union army, although in the political
prologue to the civil war he had been
a pro-slavery democrat. Secession
made a Union man and republican of
him. He headed a Missouri regiment
which served with distinction, partici-
pating in the battles of Shiloh, 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 or
ganiZationi of Oklahoma territory in
1868, and although the territory was
not established until twenty-five years
later, it was Col. Van Horn who. for
the first time, had introduced Congress
to the now familiar name of Oklahoma.
He disavOwed credit for having coined
the name. but said that E. c. Boudinot.
a Cherokee Indian, had told him it was
the Creek word meaning Red Man s
Land.
Was for Grants Third Term.
For many years Col. Van Horn was a
delegate to republican national con-
ventions and was extremely proud of
the fact that he was one of 1.-The i'm
mortal 306' who stood for the third
term nomination of Gen. Grant in the
Chicago convention of 1880.
Co1 ar
"reminiscences included the fact that
his Journal. August 26. 1858, printed
the first article announcing the discov-
cry of gold in Colorado. He also re-
called the days when the first tele-
Sraph news was received from st.
Louis over a wire completed as far as
Boonville. from which the news was
forwarded by express.
In 1864 Col. Van Horn married Miss
Adela H. Cooley of Meigs county, Ohio.
Four children were born to them, of
whom Richard Van Horn, manager of
the Van Horn estate and a former
newspaper man. is the only survivor.
Mrs. Van Horn died in July, 1910. Since
her death Col. Van Horn had spent
most of his time at Honeywood, on the
outskirts of Kansas City.