THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS

by Robert L. Perkin ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Denver and its first newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News, are this year celebrating a joint centenary:- the birth of the city in the 1859 Colorado gold rush, that of the paper in April of the same year when its first editor, William N. Byers, arrived with his hand press in an ox-wagon and boiler-plate for the first edition of his paper. This carefully documented book, based largely on reports in the News and written by a staff member of the paper, tells in fascinating if sometimes smothering detail the story of Byers, the News, Denver and many of its more vivid citizens. Byers, a bouncing, versatile man, a born promoter and somewhat casual editor, died in 1902 at the age of 71; his Rocky Mountain News, having survived fire, spectacular flood, high scandal, many editors, cutthroat competition and two near-demises, is still going strong in tabloid form. Much of Colorado's history is also in this bulky volume:- Indian wars and the infamous Sand Creek massacre, gold and silver, railroads, and irrigation, con men, tycoons, cannibals and politicians, strikes and hangings, and a detailed account of Denver's other newspapers and the men who wrote for them, from the blackmailing founders of the Denver Post, Tammen and Bonfils, to Eugene Field, Damon Runyon, Ernie Pyle and endless others. Badly arranged, far too long, but a notable and well-written study of one facet of Western history, this book, too specialized in subject and weighty in poundage for general readers, should appeal to many Coloradoans, most Denverites, and journalists, editors, writers and devotees of American history east and west; it is a must for all journalistic libraries and collections of Western Americana and source documents.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1959

Categories: NONFICTION