USA > Colorado > History of Colorado; Volume I > Part 92
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By 1900 there had been many changes. The Eaton Herald was issued by H. E. Hogue. C. C. Huffsmith was publishing the Courier at Evans, the only paper there at that time, and J. A. Cheeley was printing the Platte Valley Post at Fort Lupton. Most of the others in existence in 1890 had been discontinued.
In 1911 the Ault Advertiser was published by E. P. Hubbell; the Eaton Herald by Hogue & Snook; the Evans Courier by E. P. Shaffner; the Fort Lupton Press by R. F. Davis; the Grover Tri-City Press by D. H. Williamson ; the Hudson Headlight by J. A. Digerness ; the Hudson Herald by L. C. Grove; the Kersey Enterprise by Marshall E. De Wolfe; the La Salle Observer by S. R. and P. E. Smith ; the New Raymer Enterprise by S. P. Majors; the Nunn News by U. E. Madden; the Pierce Record by H. R. Waring; the Platteville Herald by H. F. Bedford; the Platteville News by M. B. Royer; the Windsor Poudre Valley by Roy Ray; the Windsor Optimist by James Donovan.
YUMA
F. C. Brobst founded the Yuma Pioneer Christmas day, 1886. Later he established the Sun, which he sold to W. J. Goodspeed in 1888. Later owners changed the name to Republican, but on July 12, 1890, the two papers were consolidated and published as the Yuma Pioneer by Jesse A. Williams. In 1900 E. J. Pickard was editor and owner of the Pioneer, the only paper of the town at that time. In 1911 A. Burt Jessop was publisher of the Pioneer.
In 1918 the Pioneer is published by T. H. Woodbury, with H. J. Woodbury
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as editor. B. R. Coffman is publishing the Yuma County Times, a recently established paper. The Eckley Record is the property of C. E. McKimson.
WRAY
The Wray Rattler was founded by B. C. C. Condon early in the '80s. Later the Wray Republican was established by J. E. Pettingill, who sold it to W. C. Emmons. John Griffin later moved it to Eckley. In 1900 the Wray Rattler was alone in its field, and was conducted by J. N. Counter.
In 1911 Simon S. Dow was publishing the Gazette and C. L. Will, the Wray Rattler. In 1918 the Gazette is published by C. E. McKimson, and the Rattler by W. M. Scott.
CRIPPLE CREEK
The Cripple Creek Times and Victor Daily Record, 'known as the Times- Record, is published every morning except Monday, by the Cripple Creek Times Company, and is the only paper published at this date in Teller County. The Cripple Creek Times Company owns the Associated Press franchise.
The Times-Record was originally published as the Morning Times in 1892 by Thomas M. Howell, publisher and editor. A weekly edition was first pub- lished in 1896, and its publication has been maintained to this date. In the year of the Cripple Creek fire the files were destroyed (1896). T. M. Howell continued in charge until 1897 when the Morning Times was sold to the Morn- ing Times Publishing Company, G. S. Hoag manager, F. J. Arkins, editor. In 1900 the name was changed to the Morning Times-Citizen, the Citizen, an afternoon paper, having passed into the possession of the Morning Times Publishing Company. In 1902, on April Ist, the paper was sold to John S. Irby, and on April Ist made its appearance as the Cripple Creek Times, with WV. H. Griffith as manager and editor. On April 4, 1903, the paper again changed ownership, passing to the Cripple Creek Times Publishing Company, with George W. Shepherd as manager, C. V. Woodard as editor. It remained under this management until 1908, when the Times was purchased by the late George E. Kyner. J. P. Hughes was editor under the Kyner management in IgII, and on November 9, 1912, Percy Kyner was named general manager, during the illness of his brother. On April 1, 1913, the Victor Record passed into possession of the Cripple Creek Times Company, and the paper appeared on that date under the name of the Cripple Creek Times and Victor Daily Record. Huse Taylor was manager of the publication from April, 1913, until January I, 1914, with A. F. Francis as editor, the latter remaining with the paper until his death late that year. On January 1, 1914, William A. Kyner became general manager, and still holds that position. The present editor is G. J. Tipton. The politics of the paper has varied with the management, passing from democratic to republican, Teller Silver republican, and independent. At present it is an independent publication.
HINSDALE COUNTY
In all the mining camps of the state the newspaper press came with the first rush of prospectors. In Hinsdale County the old Silver World, established
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HISTORY OF COLORADO
by Harry Woods and Clark L. Peyton in 1875, began with three subscribers. The material had been hauled over from Saguache, and was delayed in arrival. The circulation of the Silver World covered a route of 110 miles to subscribers and to the nearest postoffice at Saguache. It changed hands in 1876, again in 1878, again in 1885, and then it quietly passed away as The Sentinel. Its last editor was F. E. Dacon. The San Juan Crescent started in 1877 by Harry Woods, the Phonograph, established by Walter Mendenhall, and the Lake City Mining Register, owned by J. F. Downey, had short existences.
LAKE CITY
The Lake City Times, now owned by William C. Blair, was established January 15, 1891, by D. S. Hoffman and A. R. Arbuckle.
GARFIELD COUNTY
The leading papers of Garfield County in 1918 are the Avalanche-Echo, a weekly, and. the Daily Avalanche, of Glenwood Springs, H. J. Holmes, one of the oldest and most influential of western slope newspaper men, owner and editor ; and the weekly Glenwood Post, A. J. Dickson, publisher and editor ; the Rifle Telegram-Reveille, Clarkson & Swartz, publishers; the Carbondale Item, V. A. Moore, editor; and the Grand Valley News, Elmer E. Wheatley, editor.
J. S. Swan and W. J. Reid were the pioneer newspaper men of the county, with the famous Ute Chief which they started in the fall of 1885. B. Clark Wheeler, who had made a big stake at Aspen, was the backer of James L. Riland in the publication of the Glenwood Echo in 1888. H. J. Holmes had, however, come into the county in 1887, and at once pre-empted the daily field with the Daily News of which the first copy was printed in December of that year. The Ute Chief followed his example, and its daily appeared early in 1888. By fall both had enough of competition and joined issues in the Daily Ute Chief-News. In the next two years the paper changed hands four times, and names twice, being known as The New Empire and then as the Glenwood Springs Republican. In 1891 it was discontinued as a daily, and in 1892 it became the People's Herald. This after many further vicissitudes is now the Avalanche and in able editorial hands.
CARBONDALE
The Avalanche was started at Carbondale by Frank P. Bestin, a blind editor from Red Cliff, in 1888, and soon after became the property of H. J. Holmes, who in 1891 brought it to Glenwood Springs, where within a month he began publishing it as a daily. Later he absorbed the Echo, and changed the name of his weekly issue to the Avalanche-Echo, which it still retains.
In 1889 Mr. Holmes saw an opening at Rifle, and started the Reveille. This he sold in 1890 to H. B. Swartz and J. W. Armstrong, who later absorbed the Telegram, another short-lived venture. It is to-day published as the Telegram- Reveille. New Castle has no paper to-day, but in 1888 George West, of the
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Golden Transcript, started the Nonpareil. This was later the Cactus and then the News, under which name it is now published at Grand Valley by Elmer E. Wheatley.
DELTA COUNTY
The newspapers of Delta County comprise to-day one of the most influential groups in the state. These include the Delta County Tribune, E. E. Watts, publisher and editor; the Delta Independent, A. M. Anderson, publisher; the West Slope, of Cedaredge, George O. Blake, editor; and the Surface Creek Champion, of Cedaredge, C. W. Brewer, publisher; the Hotchkiss Herald, Arthur L. Perry, owner; and the Hotchkiss North Fork Times, Thomas L. Blackwell, editor; and the Paonian, Arthur L. Craig, publisher.
Of these the oldest is the Independent, which was founded as the Delta Chief, March 7, 1883, by Robert D. Blair. Later the Delta County Advertiser was established by Charles W. Russell, both papers being consolidated into the Independent by C. G. Downing. On November 22, 1887, Harry Wilson and J. H. Woodgate owned it, later selling it to J. A. Curtis. The Laborer, founded in 1890 by R. J. Coffey and C. M. Snyder, had but a brief existence.
CUSTER COUNTY
Custer County in the days of its mining boom had both weeklies and dailies. In 1918 only the memory of these publications at Rosita and Silver Cliff is left, but over at Westcliffe the old Wet Mountain Tribune, first published at Rosita, still thrives and is a power for good in the able hands of Philip Doyle. In 1890 while at Rosita it was the property of Alex H. Lacy. In September, 1874, Charles Baker, a Colorado Springs newspaper mani, and Ben L. Posey began to publish the Index at Rosita. In 1879 Charles F. Johnson bought it and called it the Sierra Journal. The Silver Cliff Prospect, started in 1879, blossomed out as a daily in June of that year. On April 1, 1880, Dr. G. W. B. Lewis started the Silver Cliff Weekly Republican, and in November 1886 C. E. Hunter and H. W. Comstock began publishing the Mining Gazette. All have gone to the limbo of "things-that-were." In 1878 W. L. Stevens began the Miner at Silver Cliff.
In 1882 Will C. Ferril, C. W. Bony and S. B. Coates began the Daily Herald, which lived nearly a year.
GUNNISON
In the spring of 1880 Root & Olney, printers, brought a new printing press to Gunnison. The first paper, however, in Gunnison County, had been estab- lished in May, 1879, at Hillerton by Henry C. Olney. Its existence was brief. The Gunnison Review, Root & Olney's paper, began publication on May 15, 1880, and the first issue off the press sold for $100 at a public auction on the day of publication. On October 11, 1881, it appeared as a daily. The Free Press, which in the meantime had been started as a competitor, was merged with the Review, which after August 5, 1882, became the Review-Press. On November
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22, 1886, with Henry C. Olney as publisher, it became a tri-weekly, and in 1889 was again published as a weekly.
H. F. Lake bought out the three papers: The Gunnison News in December, 1900; the People's Champion in January, 1901; and the Tribune in July, 1904, and combined them to make the News-Champion. On November 1, 1911, C. F. Roehrig bought the News-Champion and published it fourteen months, when he sold it to Judge Clifford H. Stone; on July 14, 1914, the paper was purchased by the News-Champion Printing and Publishing Company, and H. F. Lake, Jr., became editor and manager of the paper.
The Gunnison News was the initial journalistic effort in Gunnison. The first issue appeared April 17, 1880, about a month before the Review, with the name of Col. W. H. F. Hall heading the editorial column. Colonel Hall dis- posed of a three-fourths interest in the paper to J. H. Haverly, C. H. Boutcher, formerly editor of a paper in Pennsylvania; and E. A. Buck, editor of the New York Spirit of the Times. In August, 1880, Frank McMaster and Frank T. Southerland launched the Gunnison Democrat. In June, 1881, Mr. Buck consolidated the two papers into what was known as the News-Democrat. In the fall of the same year, the paper became a daily, and remained so until the decline in the fortunes of the town. Mr. N. P. Babcock was the first editor and Frank P. Tanner the business manager. Joseph Heiner was a later editor. In 1891, the paper was sold to the Gunnison News Publishing and Printing Company, and Mr. C. T. Rawalt was one of the editors.
During the "hard times" of 1893, and the violent financial and political dis- turbances that accompanied them, the People's Champion, a weekly paper, was started in Gunnison by George C. Rhode, one of the populist leaders, and for seven years it flourished as the stormy petrel of newspaperdom on the Western Slope. Mr. Rawalt was also among its editors.
The Gunnison Republican was started in 1900 by C. T. Sills, and is strongly of the republican persuasion.
The Pitkin Miner, now owned by W. J. Williamson, is another of the old-time Gunnison County publications.
CHAPTER XL
STATE INSTITUTIONS-CORRECTIONAL AND ELEEMOSYNARY
THE COLORADO STATE PENITENTIARY-MODERN METHODS-ROAD BUILDING-BOARD OF PARDONS-THE COLORADO STATE HOSPITAL AT PUEBLO THE COLORADO SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF AND THE BLIND HOW IT HAS DEVELOPED INTO A NATIONALLY-FAMED INSTITUTION-THE COLORADO SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' HOME AT MONTE VISTA-COLORADO STATE REFORMATORY-THE STATE HOME CARING FOR DEPENDENT AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN-STATE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS-STATE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS-INDUSTRIAL WORK- SHOP FOR THE BLIND-SCHOOL FOR MENTAL DEFECTIVES-MOTHERS' COMPEN- SATION ACT.
The State Home, formerly known as the State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, the Industrial Workshop for the Blind, the Colorado Insane Asylum, now known as the Colorado State Hospital, the State Home and Training School for Mental Defectives, the Colo- rado State Reformatory and the Colorado State Penitentiary comprise the list of state institutions under the jurisdiction of the State Board of Charities and Correction.
THE COLORADO STATE PENITENTIARY
The Territorial Legislature, on January 7, 1868, established a penitentiary at Cañon City. The Federal authorities built the first cell house on a twenty- five acre site selected for this purpose and donated by Anson Rudd. The first building contained forty-two cells, entirely inadequate under the frontier con- ditions of that period. This first cell house was opened June 1, 1871, with Mark A. Shaffenberg, U. S. Marshal for Colorado, in charge and in April, 1874, was officially transferred to the territorial authorities. The General Assembly, on March 15, 1877, provided for its enlargement and maintenance. The enabling act had also set aside a land grant from which the institution has, by leasing and sale, derived a constantly growing income. Improvement and enlargements were made from year to year, until 1900, when three cell houses with a total of 444 cells for men and a separate prison for women comprised the prison buildings.
The following table covers the expenditures, maintenance and earnings for biennial periods, January 1, 1883, to 1900.
1883-1884
Total expended $223,154.89 226,486.44
Maintenance $167,464.23
175,456.70
Earnings $50,405.83 70,067.28
1885-1886
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VIEW OF CANON CITY SHOWING THE EXTENT OF THE CITY IN THE SPRING OF 1879 State Penitentiary in the left foreground. (Reproduced from a photographic enlargement of a wood engraving.)
CANON CITY ABOUT 1885 State Penitentiary in foreground. (Reproduced from an enlargement of a photographie view.)
Vol. I-52
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HISTORY OF COLORADO
Total expended
Maintenance
Earnings
1887-1888
219,841.48
171,653.14
80,676.17
1889-1890
235,847.87
166,098.84
53,836.61
1891-1892
232,810.44
168,880.60
59,238.47
1893-1894
267,823.05
179,892.30
36,724.62
1895-1896
196,192.53
169,578.14
22,982.39
1897-1898
192,354-45
165,193.57
16,378.91
1899-1900
221,798.89
158,157.45
27,362.89
The total expenditure for the biennial period 1907-8 was $254,943.99. The earnings were $54,943.99, bringing it up to the old figures. But to this should now be added the money saved the state in road building, which brings actual earnings for these first periods up to nearly if not in every case more than the amount of the entire maintenance expense.
In 1911 and 1912 the institution earned in cash $33,144.24, and in ranch and garden products $21,017.23. Two new buildings were constructed by the convicts and with improvements to existing buildings this amounted to $76,320.36. The road work done during this period amounted to $223,479.56. So that the total earnings were $353,961.39, and the appropriation from the state was $237,000, practically no increase over previous years.
In 1915-16 the value of this road work done by the prisoners is placed at $465,000, while the maintenance expense was kept at practically the same figures as in the period of 1913-14, $207,000.
In the earlier years the prisoners were employed in the quarries, in dressing stone, making brick and lime, building walls, repairing prison buildings, and in farm and garden work. In the biennial period of 1899-1900 about 2,200,000 pounds of farm produce raised by prisoners was weighed in at the prison sides.
In August, 1899, the indeterminate sentence and parole law went into effect. Under this prisoners can now by good behavior and by work on the highways cut their terms nearly in half. With life prisoners also there has now come into ef- fect a policy of commuting the sentence to a term of years, if the conduct of the prisoner warrants. There is also now a policy of adjusting sentences by means of commutations. For instance, in one district a prisoner found guilty of ore thefts will be given a very short sentence. On the other hand his companion for a similar crime in another district will be given an unusually severe sentence. The power of commutation is now justly used to adjust these irregularities in penal- ties.
In 1900 the General Assembly began to encourage the use of prisoners in the construction of state highways. In that year about seventy miles of road was thus improved under legislative enactment between Pueblo and Leadville. Under the methods first adopted the prisoners were turned over to a road superintendent and there was constant dissension between the latter and the prison authorities. Finally the work was placed in direct charge of the prison officials and the results were in every way satisfactory.
In 1903 the three cell houses were entirely inadequate and cells were in many instances occupied by two prisoners. In 1904 a new cell house provided quarters for an additional hundred prisoners. In 1907 the hospital and insane ward and
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the new bakery plant were constructed, the labor coming nearly altogether from prisoners.
In 1906 the Legislature appropriated funds for the construction of a north and south highway across the state, beginning at Trinidad. This work was done largely by prison labor, and is one of the best constructed highways in the state. Under what was known as the Lewis law much work was done by convicts on county roads.
In 1910 Thomas J. Tynan, the present warden, made his first biennial re- port, and two paragraphs taken from this give some conception of the reforms introduced by him: "The present system of handling prisoners is an incentive to the preservation of self-respect. Instead of sending broken revengeful men back into the world-in no wise reformed but simply trained to greater cunning -- there are being restored mended men, eager and willing to be made of such use as society will permit. By removing the continual threat of arms, by elimi- nating oppression and brutalities, by establishing a system of graded rewards for cheerfulness and industry, the penitentiary has been given a wholesome, helpful atmosphere. Beginning with the first of the year, 1911, no striped clothing is to be in use in this prison, the present system permitting the change from 'stripes' to blue after a probationary period of ninety days."
The prisoners on parole December 1, 1908, numbered 676; paroled in 1909 and 1910, 544; of this total number only sixty-two were returned either for vio- lation of parole or for crimes committed while on parole.
It is now estimated that 80 per cent of those placed on parole are making good.
In the biennial period, 1911 and 1912, the daily average of prisoners contained in the penitentiary was 768, compared with 724 in 1909-1910. Of these 334, or 52 per cent, were daily employed on trust and honor. The prisoners built in this period 157 miles of road. In 1914-15 this mileage was 149. In 1915-16 the institution worked 1,085 prisoners on road and farm work.
In 1907-8 there were 1,243 individual prisoners handled; in 1909-10 this fig- ure grew to 1,402; in 1911-12 this figure was 1,462; in 1913-14, it was 1,603. Appropriations for these periods were: 1907-8, $216,000; 1909-10, $240,000; 1911-12, $237,000; 1913-14, $208,000; 1915-16, $207,000.
The new administration building, the appropriation for which was made from earnings of land owned by the institution, was completed and is now occupied. The old administration building has been razed. During this and the previous biennial period the cell houses were enlarged and made thoroughly sanitary. The Colorado penitentiary is today considered one of the model institutions of its kind in the country.
The State Board of Corrections, which has supervision of the state peni- tentiary, consisted January 1, 1918, of E. B. Wicks, of Pueblo, president ; L. C. Paddock, of Boulder ; and I. B. Allen, of Denver, secretary. Thomas J. Tynan continues as warden. The last Board of Penitentiary Commissioners consisted of Joseph H. Maupin, of Cañon City, president ; E. W. McDaniel, of La Junta ; and Mrs. Helen L. Grenfell, of Denver, secretary.
The work of Thomas J. Tynan is thus epitomized by a newspaper student of his methods: "Fifteen life-termers are among the 300 convicts who in khaki-clad gangs of about sixty are blasting out good roads through the Rockies. They
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work under unarmed overseers, with no stockades, no barbed wire, no ball and chain, no growl of guns. Nine o'clock at night sees a roll-call at each road camp. Then the gang climbs into its tented bunks and the camp's solitary rifle is shoul- dered by the night guard-convict, who keeps a keen lookout for coyotes. Less than one-half of one per cent of the convicts so trusted have escaped since Colo- rado's first road camp was pitched, May 12, 1908. Special legislation gives in ad- dition to a liberal good-behavior allowance a ten-day reduction of term for every thirty days in a road camp. Thus a Colorado convict sentenced to between ten and twenty years is enabled to earn his release in four years and three months. When the State Board of Pardons met, December, 1912, at Denver, Bud Parrott, murderer and life term convict and who had been one of the most desperate characters in the state, in answer to a telegram from his warden, left the road camp alone and in citizen clothes, boarded a train at Fort Collins, rode alone seventy-seven miles to Denver, talked unattended to Governor Shafroth, pleaded his own case before the board, and then quietly returned to camp. He was par- doned in 1913. When the famous Sky Line Drive, at Canon City, the road to the top of the Royal Gorge, was completed, the 700 convicts who had built it were the reception committee along the drive to welcome the governor and staff. Convicts built this famous highway for $6,400. When Mr. Tynan was appointed in March, 1909, he found 500 idle convicts, seventeen of whom were insane. There were guards who swore at convicts, spies who peeped into cells at night, whips for flogging men, a final substitute for the paddle which was used for years, and unsanitary conditions generally. He changed all that. This is what the convicts did in 1909 and 1910, exclusive of road building: Built for $16,059.45 a modern $75,000 hospital building, measuring 138 x 48 ft., contain- ing every hospital necessity from sun-parlor to morgue, and designed by Fran- cisco, No. 6,515, a life termer, who had learned all his architecture at the peni- tentiary ; laid 8,539 square feet of cement floor in the prison, and 42,775 square feet of cement sidewalk outside; installed a complete duplicate electric-lighting system, throughout the penitentiary, installed a complete new heating sys- tem, laid 19,014 fire-brick; built a railroad spur to the penitentiary quarry, enabling him to sell $17,000 worth of stone a year; screened every door and window ; planted ivy vines around all of the stone buildings ; drove a tunnel far into the Royal Gorge, obtaining the purest mountain water for Canon City and the penitentiary ; dug and operated twenty acres of irrigation ditches ; worked four ranches, including 500 acres of rented land, and earned from these farms $12,000 for the prison."
BOARD OF PARDONS
The Board of Pardons, created in 1893 by the General Assembly, consisted for the next biennial period of the members of the State Board of Charities and Correction. In 1895, by enactment, a distinctive Board of Pardons, with the secretary of the state board of charities and correction, acting in this capacity for both bodies, was created. The term of office is four years, the governor presiding over its deliberations. Its duties are to investigate all applications for executive clemency and lay the facts before the governor with its recommendations. The first state board of pardons under the act comprised: Albert W. McIntire, gov-
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ernor ; Dr. Ida Noyes Beaver, of Denver; Robert W. Bonynge, of Denver; Wil- liam F. Slocum, Jr., of Colorado Springs; Dr. Eugene A. Wheeler, and John H. Gabriel, of Denver.
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