Thirty-eight 19^th Century lithographic prints from the collections of the State Archives Division, Kansas Historical Society (KSHS), show many Kansas cities and towns from a novel “bird’s-eye” perspective. The Archives’ entire bird’s-eye print collection is now available on Kansas Memory.

Advances in lithographic printing, a coterie of itinerant (often European-trained) artists, and an increasing interest in town promotion all led to a proliferation of “bird’s-eye” illustrations of many American cities in the several decades following the Civil War.

A few printing firms dominated the bird’s-eye map market in the Midwest. The following firms are the most frequently represented in the KSHS collection:

Lott & Zeuch Lithograph, Chicago, Illinois

Strobridge & Co. Lithograph, Cincinnati, Ohio

Ramsey, Millett, & Hudson Lithograph, Kansas City, Missouri

The earliest prints in the collection actually predate the Civil War and Kansas statehood, being depictions of Sumner in 1858 and Tecumseh in 1859. Middleton, Strobridge  & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, created the prints.

The local production of Kansas bird’s-eye illustrations was rare. Topeka resident, Henry Worrall drew a bird’s-eye map of Topeka that was published in Hirons and Bowen’s Directory of Shawnee, Osage, and Wabaunsee Counties in 1887. This is the only known print in the KSHS collection that was created by a Kansan.

August Koch was one of the most prolific bird’s-eye artists in the United States. Five prints attributed to Koch are included in the KSHS collection. Koch spent nearly half of his career working in Kansas City, Missouri.

The most unique print in the collection is an 1879 view of Oak Dale Park in Salina by August Koch. The print promotes the park as the site of the Kansas State Tournament games. The park has hosted the Smokey Hill River Festival since 1977.

See the entire KSHS bird’s eye map collection on Kansas Memory.

Search the Wichita Eagle newspaper from 1872-1909 on Chronicling America.

In 1872, the Wichita City Eagle debuted as the dominant newspaper of south-central Kansas and a pioneer newspaper of the state. Established in 1870 and named after an Indian tribe, Wichita was the seat and largest city of Sedgwick County. The first issue of what would later become widely known as the Eagle was published on April 12, 1872. It boasted a circulation of nearly 400 in a city of only 1,500 people. By 1877, the Eagle's readership reached 1,500 as Wichita’s population grew to over 4,800; five years later circulation swelled to more than 2,500 in a county of 18,000. On April 19, 1883, the Wichita City Eagle changed its name to the Wichita Eagle, which, like its predecessor, was a Republican weekly. As Wichita grew so too did the Eagle. In 1888, when the population of the county surpassed 48,800, with 31,700 living within the city limits, the Eagle's readership reached 6,000.

In order to become better acquainted with the people of Wichita, Eagle founder Marshall M. Murdock (1837-1908) had personally delivered the first issue of the newspaper to every home and business. Murdock’s younger brother, Roland P. Murdock (1843-1906), assisted him as publisher and editor. Marshall Murdock began his journalistic career at the Burlingame Osage Chronicle in 1863 before moving to Wichita. In 1864, Murdock enlisted as a lieutenant colonel of the Osage and Lyon county militia in the wake of Confederate General, and former Missouri governor, Sterling Price’s raid on Kansas. As publisher, Murdock, commonly remembered as “Marsh,” expressed to the newspaper’s readers that “the ambition of its founder is, and will be, to make [the Eagle] the leading journal of the Great Southwest.”

Just as the people of Wichita welcomed the arrival of the Eagle, railroads bringing cattle from the south helped establish Wichita as the “cow capital” of Kansas. The Eagle's popularity continued to increase with the growth of the region. The paper’s headlines frequently concerned railroad expansion, the cattle and wheat industries, and temperance unions.

The Wichita Eagle simultaneously published a daily edition called the Daily Eagle in 1884 and the Wichita Daily Eagle until 1886. Following the January 20, 1888 issue, the title changed to the Wichita Weekly Eagle in an apparent attempt to help differentiate it from its daily counterparts. Weekly editions lasted until 1919 when greater demand for daily newspapers made such publications irrelevant. The main competitor of the Eagle was the Democratic Wichita Weekly Beacon published by David G. Millison and Fred A. Sowers, along with a daily edition, the Daily Beacon, both founded in 1872. Sowers had published the first newspaper in the area called the Wichita Vidette back in 1870-72. The Eagle and the Beacon remained strong rivals for nearly 90 years until the latter merged with the Evening Eagle in 1960 to form the Evening Eagle and Beacon under Marcellus Murdock, the son of Marshall M. Murdock.

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Search the Advocate newspaper and its variants from 1889-1899 on Chronicling America.

The Advocate began on August 10, 1889, and became the official organ of the Kansas Farmers’ Alliance with the motto “Devoted to the Interests of the Farmer’s Alliance and Industrial Union and Other Kindred Organizations.”  It later served as the leading paper of the People’s Party in the state, with phenomenal circulation and commanding influence.  The Advocate became the conscience and inspiration of Kansas Populism.  Regarding many of the political issues of the time in Kansas, readers would say: “We don’t know what to think about this or that; we will wait until the Advocate comes.  Doctor McLallin will give us the truth” (a memoir of McLallin by Annie L. Diggs in Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1897-1900).  

 Stephen McLallin had practiced for nearly two decades as a physician when he took editorial charge of the Meriden Report, which he renamed the Advocate in 1889.  The first twenty issues of the Advocate ran until December 20, 1889, when the newspaper outgrew its Meriden facilities and moved to Topeka.  McLallin was one of the founders of the National Reform Press Association, and for a time was its president as well as president of the Kansas Reform Press Association.  In 1890 the Populist orator and reformer Annie Leporte Diggs joined the paper as associate editor.  The People’s Party, which had arisen out of the Farmer’s Alliance movement, gave voice the political needs of farmers and common citizens.  Populists believed that the government was operating only in the interests of the economic elite.   On July 27, 1892, “as the result of a matrimonial transaction in journalism,” the Advocate and another Populist paper, the Topeka Tribune, merged to reduce publication costs.  The efforts of the renamed Advocate and Topeka Tribune continued in the direction of political reform and in the interests of the People’s Party.  On January 17, 1894, the paper resumed its original title of the Advocate.  McLallin continued to edit the Advocate until about a year before he died on March 4, 1897.  By then, the paper was under the direction of William Alfred Peffer, the first Populist U.S. Senator.  Peffer had been chairman of the national conference that organized the People’s Party and served as president of the National Reform Press Association.  He was an important reformer to the extent that Populism was sometimes referred to as “Pefferism.”

 In 1897, the Advocate and News merged with another Topeka paper, George B. Harrison’s Kansas News, and ran as the Advocate and News.  It continued until 1899 when the title changed to the Farmer’s Advocateunder the same editors and publishers.

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Search the Kanzas News newspaper from 1857-1859 on Chronicling America.

The Kanzas News was established on June 6, 1857, in the then brand new town of Emporia by Preston Bierce Plumb (1837-1891), who had arrived in the Kansas Territory in late 1856 intent on aiding the free-state cause.  At the time, Emporia reportedly consisted of three buildings--all under construction.  The town had been laid out by citizens of Lawrence, among them, George Washington Brown, the editor of the KansasHerald of Freedom, and its foreman, Plumb.  Plumb became a permanent and prominent citizen of Emporia, and the Kansas News became a voice of the free-state movement in the territory, as well as being Emporia’s only newspaper for its first twelve years. 

 The Kanzas News was modeled after the Xenia News of Xenia, Ohio, which Plumb had purchased and run at the age of 16.  In the first edition of the Kanzas News, Plumb proclaimed his political independence, stating that he would act according to his own “convictions of right and duty” and that he saw “no middle ground between right and wrong--no compromise with evil." With the motto “The People Always Conquer,” Plumb clearly established the paper’s free-state stance, writing that the “struggle now going on between Freedom and Slavery is a death one; one or the other must succumb. The agitation of this question will not and should not stop until every bondsman is made free, or until every poor man (white or black) is made a slave…. we shall never cease our warfare with slavery.” The first issue of the newspaper also included Emporia’s town charter, which, among other things, prohibited gambling and the use and sale of “spirituous liquor,” making Emporia the region’s first dry town.  Plumb also promoted the idea of providing free 100-acre homesteads to actual settlers.

The News covered the proslavery Lecompton constitutional convention in Kansas, which was denounced as the “Bogus Constitution” and the “Felon Constitution.” Later issues covered the Congressional debates over the Lecompton constitution, the Mormon War in the then neighboring territory of Utah, and continuing conflicts between Missouri “border ruffians” and Kansas free-staters. 

On July 31, 1858, Joseph Stotler joined Plumb as the Kanzas News as foreman.  There was also a change to the title with a substitution of the letter “s” for “z”.  Stotler became the paper’s editor when Plumb announced his departure on January 22, 1858.  Plumb later served in the Civil War, became an attorney, and embarked on a career in politics, eventually serving as the U.S. Senator from 1877 until his death in 1891.  On August 13, 1859, Stotler changed the title of the paper from the Kansas News to the Emporia News, then later in 1881 to the Emporia Weekly News.  In 1889, the latter merged with the Emporia Democrat to form the Weekly News-Democrat.

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Search the Squatter Sovereign newspaper from 1855-1857 on Chronicling America.

Founded in Atchison, Kansas, the Squatter Sovereign was the shrillest, most widely read voice of Kansas proslavery opinion.  Based on the principle of “squatter sovereignty,” which stated that the citizens of any state or territory should have the right to regulate their domestic institutions as they see fit, the first issue of the paper featured the tagline: “The Squatter claims the same sovereignty in the territories that he possessed in the states.”  Proslavery elements in particular championedthis viewpoint, and the Squatter Sovereign promoted the migration of Missourians and other proslavery groups into the territory in order to influence elections.

The Squatter was first published on February 3, 1855, by Robert S. Kelley and John H. Stringfellow through the Atchison Town Company.  The paper immediately endorsed the extension of slavery in Kansas and opposed the abolitionists arriving in the territory.  In April of 1856, the Squatter wrote: “If Kansas is not made a slave state, it requires no sage to tell that without some very extraordinary revolution there will never be another slave state; and if this is not enough, then we say, without the fear of successful contradiction, that Kansas must become a slave state or the Union will be dissolved.”  The paper directed extreme criticism at Eli Thayer of the New England Emigrant Aid Company who had assisted a handful of antislavery settlers bound for the territory. 

During the Squatter’s run, Kelley became engaged in a feud with Henry Rives Pollard, the editor of another proslavery paper the Kansas Weekly Herald,  The exchange between the editors finally enraged Pollard to the point of challenging Kelley to a duel.  Although labeled by some a border ruffian, Kelley chose not to risk having his career terminated. Kelley suggested that if Pollard would devote as much time and space to editing a newspaper worthy of the name and support the cause for which the papers were founded and boost the community in which he proposed to live, he wouldn’t have time to fight a duel.  (Pollard was later assassinated in Richmond, Virginia, for comments published in his paper, the Southern Opinion.)

When the Squatter was sold to Robert McBratney, Franklin G. Adams, Samuel C. Pomeroy, and Thaddeus Hyatt in 1857, what had been the virulent voice of the proslavery faction in the territory became a free-state paper.  Stringfellow and Kelley left Kansas and eventually served in the Confederate army.  Business demands took precedence over politics, however. Although the town company was still dominated by Southern proslavery elements, Eastern immigration was seen as both desirable and necessary.  When the paper came into the hands of John A. Martin in 1858, it was renamed Freedom’s Champion and, later the Atchison Daily Champion.

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Search the Kansas Herald of Freedom newspaper from 1854-1858 on Chronicling America.

Published in Conneautville, Pennsylvania, the Kansas Herald of Freedom first appeared with the dateline Wakarusa, Kansas Territory, on October 21, 1854.  After a delay in the editor’s move and a name change from Wakarusa, the second issue was published in Lawrence, Kansas, on January 3, 1855, although it was dated as January 6, 1855. The Kansas Herald of Freedom remained in Lawrence for the next five years.

Its publisher George Washington Brown (1820-1915) practiced law for a brief time and then changed career paths, entering the publishing business as editor for theConneautville Courier in Conneautville, Pennsylvania.  While there, Brown supported the Free-Soil political platform through his editorials.  After negotiations with the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, Brown announced he would publish the Kansas Herald of Freedom, the first free-state newspaper in the new territory.  Upon arriving in Kansas, Brown continued to promote the free-state cause to a wide readership through the Herald, which acted as the official organ of the rechristened New England Emigrant Aid Company.  The Herald and another Lawrence paper, the Kansas Free State, were contemptuous of the proponents of slavery and the proslavery territorial government.  The controversy came to a head in May 1856, culminating with the “Sack of Lawrence” on May 21.  In early May a grand jury stacked with supporters of slavery declared the two newspapers and the Free State Hotel “nuisances” that “may be removed.” Acting on this authority, the proslavery sheriff of Douglas County led a group which destroyed the hotel and newspapers’ offices, as well as other businesses and homes.  Brown was arrested on charges of high treason for which he was held for four months.  After the case was dismissed and he was released, Brown returned to rebuild and publish the Herald, beginning on November 1, 1856.

Within a few months, however, rumors began to circulate that Brown had sold out to the Democratic Party, which opposed the free-state cause.  He engaged in bitter controversies with other free-state editors and supported Territorial Governor Robert John Walker, whom free-staters came to distrust.  The once high number of subscriptions dropped due to Brown promoting Kansas’s entry in the union under the Lecompton Constitution which supported slaveholder rights. This move was seen as Brown betraying the free-state cause, and the Herald of Freedom was no longer seen as a free-state paper.  Brown’s reputation in free-state circles was further diminished after he opposed the Leavenworth Constitution and, later, the Wyandotte Constitution, both of which would have banned slavery in Kansas.  Brown served as editor of Kansas Herald of Freedomuntil its last issue appeared on December 17, 1859.  Brown left journalism and Lawrence to pursue other interests, selling much of his equipment and supplies to Josiah C. Trask and Hovey E. Lowman, who began printing the Kansas State Journal in 1861.  Brown eventually settled in Rockford, Illinois, where he engaged in the oil business, practiced medicine, and authored a biography of John Brown and histories of territorial Kansas.

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Search the Kansas Weekly Herald newspaper from 1854-1855 on Chronicling America.

The Kansas Weekly Herald was launched on September 15, 1854, in the town of Leavenworth. It was the Kansas Territory’s first newspaper, appearing along with the earliest settlers of the town.  The Herald was Democratic and proslavery and pushed for Kansas’ entry into the Union as a slave state.

William J. Osborn and William H. Adams are said to have started the Herald even before there was a town with Adams, a Kentuckian by birth, setting the type in the open air under an elm tree.  Osborne was soon replaced by Lucian J. Eastin of the St. Joseph, Missouri Gazette.  While the initial issues of the Herald under Adams’s leadership had been rather moderate in their tone, Eastin’s more radical views about slavery and the direction of Kansas were made clear to the paper’s readers.  Eastin was later elected to the First Kansas Territorial Legislature, also known as the Bogus Legislature, and he hired Henry Rives Pollard of Virginia to replace him as publisherof the Herald.  Pollard’s words turned out to be even more incendiary than Eastin’s. In his first editorial, dated April 13, 1855, Pollard stated: “…instead of regarding the existence of slavery in the United States as an evil to be restricted in its spread, we regard it as a BLESSING that deserves to be PERPETUATED.”  Years later, Pollard was assassinated in Richmond, Virginia, for maligning the sister of his shooter in his paper, the Southern Opinion.

Articles in the Weekly Herald covered various topics: the Public Acts of the U.S. Congress, the promotion of Leavenworth, land agency notices, the dangers of Know-Nothingism and its ties to Abolitionism, the movement to Kansas of antislavery settlers from New England, Squatter Sovereignty, and Manifest Destiny. The paper took issue with then Territorial Governor Andrew H. Reeder who refused back the proslavery Lecompton Constitution.  Also featured in the pages of the Herald was the feud between Pollard and Robert S. Kelley, the editor of another proslavery newspaper--the Squatter Sovereign, of whom Pollard wrote, “The low, silly, garrulous numbskull of the Squatter Sovereign, yclept Kelley-the contemptible, whining, blind puppy of Atchison, that answers to the name of ’Bob,’ continues to pour forth his tirade of abuse upon us with unrelenting fury.”  The editorial quarrel inflamed Pollard to the point that he challenged Kelley to a duel, although Kelley ultimately chose not to participate.

In 1859, William H. Gill purchased interest in and became editor of the Herald.  The paper assumed a more moderate political tone and supported Stephen A. Douglas’ presidential bid.  The following year, the Herald came under the ownership of a former U.S. Marshall, William P. Fain.  The paper failed to prosper under Fain, and in the fall of 1860 R.C. Satterlee, Benjamin R. Wilson, and C.W. Helm assumed management of the Herald with Helm as editor.  On June 13, 1861, Satterlee was shot and killed by Daniel Read Anthony of a rival newspaper, the Conservative.  The final issue of the Herald appeared on June 27, 1861.

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Search the Freemen's Champion newspaper from 1857-1858 on Chronicling America.

The Freemen’s Champion was published weekly from June 25, 1857, until September 16, 1858, in Prairie City, Kansas.  The paper was started by Salmon Stephen Prouty (1835-1889) in a “far famed tent, erected by the gallant ladies of Prairie City” using the printing press first brought to Kansas in 1834 by the printer-missionary Jotham Meeker.

 The Freemen’s Champion set out “to be uncompromising, unflinching, bold and fearless in aiding to secure the triumph of Freedom over tyranny” in the Kansas Territory, and labored “assiduously for the Free State party.”  Prouty continued in his first editorial “Justifying our name – Freemen’s Champion – we design to be a warrior in vindicating the rights of freemen.  We hope to always be found on the side of freedom and an ardent friend of the oppressed and down trodden, a relentless foe of the tyrant, the demagogue and the doughface traitor.”  Eleven issues were published and came to a stop on September 10, 1857, after inclement weather forced the newspaper to suspend publication and move out of its tent and into a building.  Instead of reopening in three or four weeks as hoped, the Champion reappeared after three months on January 28, 1858, with the assistance of Oliver P. Willet who joined Prouty in assuming publishing duties.  Their intent was to make the Champion“the sauciest, liveliest, most wide awake and most thoroughly independent paper in Kansas Territory.” 

 Willett remained with the Champion until the May 27, 1858 issue in which an article reads:  “a pro-slavery man was robbed one day last week by a gang of highway men under the lead of a person who gave his name as Capt. O.P. Willett.” The Champion denied the accusation and observed that most likely the “gang was composed of Pro Slavery desperadoes, sailing under the guise of Free State men.” Despite the paper’s claims, Willett was never credited in the publisher’s box again.  In the same issue were also initial reports of the Marais des Cygnes Massacre which occurred May 19, 1858.  Missouri border ruffians attacked antislavery settlers, and “murder and rapine was the order of the day in Lynkins, Lynn and Bourbon counties.”  The following issue carried eyewitness accounts of the attack.  The Champion continued until September 16, 1858, when publication ceased after the editorial note which read only: “No paper will be issued next week, and possibly none during the week following.  The publisher is compelled to be absent on business connected with the office.”

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Search the Globe-Republican newspaper from 1889-1910 on Chronicling America.

The Globe-Republican was published weekly in Dodge City from October 23, 1889 until November 24, 1910. Always an eight-page, six-column paper, subscribers received the Globe-Republican every Wednesday until August 1895 when it switched to a Thursday publishing schedule. Founder Daniel M. Frost, stated that the paper was “devoted to chronicling the activities of the cattle ranges and deploring the gambling rackets and the saloon murders of the frontier town.” Far from being prudish, Frost opposed Prohibition and “championed the Republican wet cause.” By 1893, the Globe-Republican was the “Official Paper of the County” and boasted “a circulation more than twice as large as any other newspaper in the county.” By 1910, over 900 copies were circulating in a city of 2,600 and a county of 7,600 inhabitants.

The history of the Globe-Republican can be traced to Christmas Day, 1877, when attorneys Daniel M. Frost and William N. Morphy founded the Ford County Globe. The paper went through several title and personnel changes before becoming the Globe-Republican in 1889. In July 1891, Walter C. Shinn, who had established the Dodge City Times in 1876, returned to Dodge City to become assistant editor for the Globe-Republican. Frost delivered his valediction in the January 14, 1892 issue, followed by Shinn’s relinquishment of editorial duties on February 1, 1895. Nicholas B. Klaine, Frost’s former editorial rival at the Dodge City Times, took over sole charge of the newspaper on June 21, 1895, stating that the Globe-Republican “will be a clean newspaper of which no one will be ashamed, and its columns will be free of abuse and scurrility.” Klaine sold the newspaper and printing plant to William E. Davis and Frank W. Tyler on June 15, 1902. In their salutatory editorial address, the new owners proclaimed to “strive at all times to be fair and courteous to the home people who are [of] different political faith, but will be persistent and steadfast in standing for its own [Republican] convictions.”

After the November 24, 1910 issue, the name officially changed to the Dodge City Globe, commonly referred to as just the Globe, which remained in publication until 1918. Editor Jess C. Denious cited the reason for the name change the complaints from patrons that “it was too much trouble to write Globe-Republican when remittances were to be made to this office.” In December 1911, a daily edition was introduced called the Dodge City Daily Globe, which continues to publish to this day.

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Search the Smoky Hill and Republican Union newspaper from 1861-1964 on Chronicling America.

With the noteworthy motto “We Join Ourselves to No Party That Does Not Carry The Flag, and Keep Step to the Music of the Union,” The Smoky Hill and Republican Union clearly expressed its antislavery sentiment. Published from 1861 until 1864 in Junction City, Kansas, the seat of Davis (now Geary) County in the northeast part of the state, the newspaper’s title refers to the two rivers, the Smoky Hill and the Republican, that converge in the city. At the time it was the westernmost newspaper in Kansas. The Smoky Hill and Republican Union maintained a four-page, six-column folio sheet format throughout its tenure. It was published each Saturday except for a one-month suspension from December 26, 1861, until January 30, 1862, when there was a change in ownership.

George W. Kingsbury, editor and proprietor, released the first issue of The Smoky Hill and Republican Union on September 12, 1861. Kingsbury had been intimately involved in the printing of the county’s first newspaper, the Junction Sentinel, in 1858-59. The Smoky Hill and Republican Union frequently covered the events of the Civil War and local elections and promoted the “patriot [i.e., Unionist] platform.” Following Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence in August 1863, the headlines reported the “unparalleled barbarism” of the Confederates and “heroism of the [local] women.” During Confederate General Sterling Price’s attacks along the Kansas and Missouri border in October 1864, the newspaper’s headlines reported the “repulse” and “total rout of Price.” The Union intended “to use what little power we possess against rebels, whether they are upon soil made glorious by freedom, or rendered cursed by the blighting hand of slavery.”

Kingsbury sold the paper in December 1861 and moved to Yankton, Dakota Territory, where he became a prominent pioneer newspaperman and author. Beginning on January 30, 1862, William S. Blakely and George W. Martin assumed the control of the paper. The Union was sold on November 19, 1864, and renamed the Courier, but the new owners printed only two issues before suspending publication. George W. Martin, acting as editor, once again revived the newspaper on April 15, 1865 under the name of The Junction City Union. The Junction City Union experienced several title changes and reincarnations in weekly and daily form up to the present. Martin held various positions, becoming one of the more respected newspapermen and civil servants of his time.

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Search the Leavenworth Weekly Times newspaper from 1870-1880 on Chronicling America.

The Leavenworth Weekly Times was published weekly from July 7, 1870, until January 1, 1880. Along with its daily counterpart Leavenworth Daily Times, it proclaimed itself as “the oldest paper in the State…the first Republican paper issued in the county, and the first Daily published in Kansas.” The Times also was recognized as the official paper of the county and city of Leavenworth. In 1870, the Times employed 27 people and recorded annual expenses of $56,000. In 1880, the paper circulated 8,900 copies when the county’s population reached 32,000. Although the number of pages in each issue fluctuated, the Times successfully filled nine columns with newsworthy content each week.

Daniel Read Anthony (1824-1904), younger brother of women’s suffrage advocate Susan B. Anthony, was one of the founders of Leavenworth and a public official, as well as the town’s most prolific newspaper publisher. He moved to the Kansas Territory in 1854 as part of the New England Emigrant Aid Company’s efforts to populate Kansas with abolitionists. Anthony’s first endeavor in publishing in Leavenworth was the Conservative whose first issue appeared on January 28, 1861. In October of that same year, Anthony enlisted as Lieutenant Colonel in the First Kansas Cavalry. By nature he was both combative and radical. He held strong opinions about Leavenworth, the Republican Party, abolition, and prohibition, among others. He was perhaps the state’s most fiery editor, but the written word was not his only weapon. During his brief tenure with the Conservative, he shot and killed rival publisher Robert C. Satterlee of the Daily Leavenworth Herald after Satterlee had accused Anthony of cowardice. A jury later absolved him. In 1875, rival editor and political opponent William Embry of the Leavenworth Daily Appeal shot and nearly killed Anthony. Although Anthony did not use them in his later years, he always kept two loaded pistols in his office. Besides the shooting affrays, Anthony participated in assorted fistfights and brawls, even into his sixties.

One of his employees wrote that Anthony “was a hard task-master, yet a good one….If he didn't like you it was best to remain in the background, for he never forgot why he disliked you." Anthony was successful in dominating the daily Leavenworth County papers. In 1871, he purchased the Leavenworth Bulletin, and in 1876, he bought the Leavenworth Daily Commercial, which was the only other morning paper at the time and also the “central organ of the Democratic, or opposition, party of Kansas.”

Following his father’s death, Daniel Read Anthony, Jr. (1870-1931) became editor of the Times and served in Congress from 1907 to 1929. The Leavenworth Weekly Times was succeeded in 1880 by the weekly Leavenworth Times, which lasted until 1918. Editions of the Times published during these years included the Leavenworth Daily Times, the Daily Leavenworth Times, and the Leavenworth Times, which has been a continuously circulating daily newspaper since 1878.

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Search the Daily Eagle newspaper and related titles from 1884-1890 on Chronicling America.

Established as the first daily newspaper in Wichita to carry the Eagle name, the Daily Eagle printed four pages of news each day except Monday beginning on May 20, 1884. The Daily Eagle boasted of having “the largest circulation of any daily paper in southwestern Kansas.” Although the Daily Eagle only produced a mere 17 issues, its name remains synonymous with its successors, as well as with the city itself. On June 8, 1884, the Daily Eagle became the Whichita Daily Eagle, which circulated under that name until August 18, 1886, when it was changed simply to the Wichita Eagle. The publication schedule remained the same, but the size of each issue fluctuated between four, six, and eight pages and frequently included supplements. In 1888, the Eagle began routinely publishing a larger, 12-page Sunday edition reaching an additional 1,000 readers each week.

Marshall M. Murdock (1837-1908), a man recognized for his progressive ideas, worked as the editor and publisher of the Eagle, assisted by his younger brother and business manager, Roland P. Murdock (1843-1906). The elder Murdock, commonly known as “Marsh,” had first established the weekly Wichita City Eagle in 1872 and remained with the paper through all its title changes until his retirement in 1906. Murdock believed a strong daily newspaper supporting local and regional commercial interests would help Wichita “not only to be the city of this greatest of great valleys, but possibly, even probably, the city of the State of Kansas.”

During its short tenure, the Daily Eagle reported on the 1884 Republican National Convention and bore witness to the decline and collapse of the Greenback Party. From its first issue on June 8, 1884, the Wichita Daily Eagle embraced some of the latest formatting changes in the newspaper industry, explaining that “such a thing is unprecedented in American journalism – a border town with a nine-column daily.” On July 20, 1886, the Eagle began publication as an eight-page newspaper that “suitable machinery could be manufactured to order.” It claimed to be the first newspaper ever to be “printed on a power press in this valley and its presses the first to run by steam.” The Eagle witnessed the activities of the temperance movement, as well as the success of the railroads and the corresponding rise of Populism.

On March 18, 1890, the title reverted to the Wichita Daily Eagle, although its editors, affiliation, and audience remained unchanged. These early renditions of the Eagle paved the way for numerous successors, including the Wichita Eagle we know and read today.

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Search the Saline County Journal newspaper from 1871-1893 on Chronicling America.

On March 2, 1871, the Saline County Journal made its publishing debut in Salina, Kansas. Two issues preceded the Journal under the title of the Home Journal. The seven-column, folio-format Journal was published every Thursday as the “Official Organ of Saline County” with a Republican affiliation. In 1881, the Journal boasted of having “a circulation more than double that of any other English paper in this county” and a “circulation 900 more than the Salina Herald, " a competing weekly, Republican newspaper published from 1867 to 1889.

Beginning in late March 1887, founding editor Mason D. Sampson also began issuing a daily edition of the newspaper, which was the town’s first morning daily paper, called the Salina Daily Journal. It lasted until May 1888. Beginning in 1890, the Journal began offering a two-for-one special subscription price with other Kansas newspapers, such as the Topeka Weekly Capital and the Leavenworth Times, citing that “every Kansas man should have his County paper for home news and a paper from the Manufacturing Metropolis of the State.” The Journal was also published daily during the county fair from September 13 to September 18, 1892. During its tenure, the Journal frequently reported on the arrival of the Texas cattle trade and railroads, and the effect that livestock and agriculture, particularly wheat farming, had on the Kansas economy.

Even though the Journal experienced several editorial changes, Mason D. Sampson continued his lengthy proprietorship until he retired in June 1891. His successor, Charles Byron Kirtland (1858-1948), later served two terms as mayor of Salina. The last issue of the Journal appeared on March 9, 1893, the publisher acknowledging that since “Salina has too many newspapers…I chose rather to sell than buy.” The Journal was sold to Joseph Little Bristow (1861-1944) and thus consolidated with the Weekly Republican to make the Republican-Journal.

Search the Saline County Journal newspaper from 1871-1893 on Chronicling America.

Search the Big Blue Union newspaper from 1862-1866 on Chronicling America.

The Big Blue Union was published in Marysville, Kansas, appearing on Saturday mornings beginning with the first issue on March 29, 1862, and continuing through its last on May 19, 1866. Marysville is the seat of Marshall County, located in northeast Kansas. Taking its title partly from the Big Blue River that flowed through the town, the paper boasted a Republican affiliation and maintained a pro-Union stance in a community whose founder and early residents were decidedly proslavery. Besides serving the growing number of Union sympathizers in Marshall County, the paper also targeted Republicans in neighboring Washington County. The masthead of The Big Blue Union stated “Westward the Star of Empire takes its Way,” referring to an 1860 painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze of the same title depicting the settlement of the West and symbolizing the idea of Manifest Destiny.

The Big Blue Union frequently covered the military activities of Confederate sympathizers based in Missouri and reported on the tensions between the proponents of slavery and the supporters of Kansas as a free state. Several men served as editors and publishers of The Big Blue Union during the newspaper’s short tenure. Among these, Edwin C. Manning was the most significant. A returning Civil War veteran, Manning took over publishing the paper on August 15, 1863. He had already achieved some journalistic notoriety in Marysville during a two-month stint with the proslavery Democratic Platform in 1860, when he changed the paper’s politics without changing its title or informing the owner of the printing press. Manning was elected in the fall of 1864 to the Kansas State Senate, serving one term. Publication of The Big Blue Union was suspended from November 5, 1864 until September 30, 1865.

The Big Blue Union ceased publication altogether on May 19, 1866, citing competition from a rival, The Marysville Enterprise as the cause of its demise. Soon afterward, Manning moved to Manhattan where he began publishing the Kansas Radical.

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Search the Iola Register newspaper from 1875-1902 on Chronicling America.

Publication of the weekly Iola Register began on January 2, 1875. The town of Iola was elected seat for Allen County in 1865. The first editorial stated that “The Register will be independent in all things, and will be radical in the support of freedom, justice, and equal rights to all.” As the official paper of the county, the Iola Register circulated 850 copies in 1880 when the population surpassed 11,250. By 1890, circulation reached 1,500, and the county population reached 13,500. When the last issue was published on August 22, 1902, circulation still hovered at around 1,500, even though the population soared to over 19,500 thanks to the discovery of natural gas in the area. The days of publication and the number of pages per issue varied frequently, as did the editors and publishers.

The history of the Iola Register can be traced to the Allen County Courant, founded in 1867. Its name changed in 1868 to the Neosho Valley Register and changed again in 1870 to the Kansas State Register before being restored to the Neosho Valley Register that same year. Beginning on January 2, 1875, the paper was called the Iola Register. On October 6, 1882, the Register's new publisher, Scott Bros. & E.E. Rohrer, introduced a staunch Republican affiliation with the “confidence to believe that the party that has been on the right side of all questions of principle and policy with wonderful uniformity for the last twenty years, has within itself the power and the will to rectify these abuses and to cleanse its own machinery.” Charles F. Scott, an Allen County native, had just graduated from the University of Kansas before joining the Register, and in January 1886, he became the paper’s sole editor and proprietor. Scott went on to serve Kansas in the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1911 and unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 1918 and 1928 before returning to the Iola Register.

The Register absorbed the Democratic Allen County Courant in April 1889, and at the end of 1892, it acquired both the Elsmore Eagle and the Savonburg Progress. The weekly Iola Register changed its title in 1902 and was eventually discontinued. In the meantime, a daily edition, called the Iola Daily Register began in 1897. It went through several name changes before it evolved into the current daily newspaper, the Iola Register. Following Charles F. Scott’s death in 1938, his son Angelo C. Scott succeeded as editor for the Iola Register, which continues under the same family of publishers.

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Search The Independent newspaper from 1860-1874 on Chronicling America.

The first issue of The Independent was published in Oskaloosa on July 11, 1860. Contrary to what the name suggests, The Independent clearly stated: “we are for the Union, for our county, for the glorious Republic we have loved.” Subscribers received a copy of the newspaper with its four-page, seven-column format every Wednesday before it switched to a Saturday publication schedule in July 1861. The Independent experienced wide circulation in Jefferson County, which had a population of nearly 5,000 in 1860, as well as in other counties in northeastern Kansas.

The Independent was founded by John Wesley Roberts (1824-1900), an abolitionist and prohibitionist, who wrote his editorials from his home in Waynesville, Ohio, until he moved to Oskaloosa in 1862. Roberts had previously been publisher for The Miami Visitor in Warren County, Ohio, in which he described the events of Bleeding Kansas as recounted by his own family members. Roberts’ brother-in-law, John W. Day (1833-1905), acted as local editor and business manager of the The Independent. Although The Independent obviously sided with the Free-State cause, Roberts in his editorials denounced lawlessness on both sides. Only 30 miles from the border with Missouri, Oskaloosa witnessed important military actions during the Civil War, including Quantrill’s Raid on the city of Lawrence and Price’s Raid along the Kansas and Missouri border. The unique content and distinctive format of The Independent was emphasized by the paper’s motto: “Devoted to Agriculture, Mechanics, Arts, News and General Literature.”

Francis (Frank) Henry Roberts (1851-1945), who had been a frequent figure in the printing office since childhood and who was hailed by the Cincinnati Weekly Enquirer as the “youngest typesetter in America,” took over as sole proprietor of the The Independent following his father’s death in 1900. Today, The Oskaloosa Independent, which succeeded the The Independent after its last issue on May 2, 1874, remains in circulation.

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Search the Western Kansas World newspaper from 1889-1910 on Chronicling America.

The WaKeeney Western Kansas World was first issued on March 21, 1885. Its predecessor, the Wa-Keeney Weekly World had been published since March 1879, being the first and, at that time, the only newspaper in Trego County. The Western Kansas World was published weekly on Saturdays and consisted of four or eight pages per issue. The World was the “Official County Paper of Trego County” and used the motto “Stock Farming the Basis of Our Industries.” With a unique and illustrative masthead that showcased the importance of homesteads, livestock, and agriculture on local livelihood, theWorld represented the character of an entire region. Asserting a Republican outlook on events and politics, the paper maintained circulation numbers congruent with changes in the county’s population. In 1885, annual circulation numbered 385 in a county of just over 2,100 people. By 1920, circulation reached 1,225 among the 4,600 residents

By 1886, the sale of land was the largest business in WaKeeney. The July 17, 1886 issue listed nearly twenty firms, including dealers, surveyors, attorneys, and agents who dealt with the sale of land. In addition, the World occasionally featured illustrated stock brands of owners, farming notices from across the state, and listings of the largest crop producers in each township. The World experienced several editorial changes before the turn of the century. Winfield S. Tilton, editor of the World since 1882, sold his interest in the paper in September 1889. In March 1894, Harvey S. Givler became editor. Givler was a veteran editor in the state of Kansas after having previously worked for the Leavenworth Times and the Topeka Daily Capital, and he remained with the World for over two decades.

Beginning on December 6, 1890, and ending on February 7, 1891, the World published one page of a newspaper called the Ogallah Kicker in hopes of garnering publicity and establishing a wider audience for the paper. But with editors named Ketchum and Lickum and a motto reading “Whenever you see a head strike it, especially if it needs to be hit,” the Ogallah Kicker seems to have been mainly a ploy to add humor to the World. From February 14 through April 18, 1891, the World included one page of a newspaper called the Whip with editors Blister and Burns and a motto reading “It will feel better when it quits hurting.” Continuing its quirky ways, the World used headings for local township news columns that included “Collyer Cawings,” “Banner Buglings,” “Ogallah Oozings,” and “Happy Happenings.”

In 1889, the World absorbed the Trego County Republican, and in 1942 it took over the Collyer Advance. Proving its longevity, the Western Kansas World remains a current publication in WaKeeney.

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Search the Dodge City Times newspaper from 1876-1892 on Chronicling America.

The first issue of the Dodge City Times was published on May 20, 1876. Subscribers received a copy of the Times every Saturday until February 1881 when it was published every Thursday and then changing to Fridays beginning in May 1890. Readership extended beyond Ford County into the unsettled, frontier regions of southwest Kansas. In the years 1880-85, 720 copies were circulating in a county of fewer than 3,500 people. Although the number of pages in each issue fluctuated somewhere between four and ten, the Times steadily expanded from four to eight columns by November 1888.

The Times experienced a number of editorial as well as format changes. Walter C. Shinn, only 22 years old when he established the Times, worked as proprietor and editor along with his younger brother Otis “Lloyd” Shinn. In December 1877, Walter Shinn left Dodge City to pursue other opportunities, and Nicholas B. Klaine took his place as editor. Klaine had just arrived in Dodge City the previous month from Warrensburg, Missouri, where he had served in the state legislature and established the Warrensburg Standard, a Republican newspaper in a decidedly anti-Union region. Accustomed to “swimming upstream,” Klaine became known in Dodge City for his puritanical beliefs in a town better know for its immoral pursuits. Undermining the Shinn brothers’ attempts to maintain political independence, Klaine used the Times as a Republican organ. In August 1878, Lloyd Shinn sold his interest in the paper to Klaine, making him the sole editor and publisher. Klaine was often referred to as “Old Nick” by his rival, Editor Daniel Frost of the Globe-Republican, of which, ironically, Klaine would assume proprietorship in 1895.

On October 13, 1887, Frank Aikins took over as editor and publisher. In his salutatory, Aikins proclaimed the Times would have “no sympathy whatever with scheming politicians in any party, who buy their nominations and pay money for votes,” thus maintaining an independent affiliation. Aikins also added a column on education to the newspaper. Responsibility for the Times passed without fanfare to D.F. Owens on November 17, 1887, until his retirement from journalism less than a year later. Noel Edwards and E.L. Mendenhall took over as proprietors of the newspaper on September 6, 1888, calling it the Times-Democrat for one issue to acknowledge the merger with the Ford County Democrat and marking another significant shift in the political affiliation of the Times. In January 1890, the Times Publishing Company, “composed of the leading Democrats in the County,” took over production of the Times.

The title changed to the Dodge City Times-Ensign on January 15, 1892, when it merged with the Western Kansas Ensign. Its name changed again to the Dodge City Times on September 23, 1892, before dissolving in 1893 as the “Official organ of the People’s party of Ford County.”

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Search the Abilene Reflector newspaper and related titles from 1883-1894 on Chronicling America.

The Abilene Reflector, founded in the latter half of 1883, was an eight-page newspaper published every Thursday. Abilene is the county seat for Dickinson County, and by the early 1880s it had shed its rough cowtown image of the late 1860s to become a thriving commercial center with a rapidly growing population. By 1884 the town boasted a new public water system, an opera house seating nearly 1,000 persons, a telephone exchange, several banks, and three newspapers, including the Reflector. In March 1888, the Reflector became the official paper of Dickinson County, seizing the title from the Abilene Gazette. The Reflector retained this status throughout its tenure. In its own words, the paper was “conducted in the interest of the Democratic party, believing the party in its wisdom in the choice of candidates, from county offices to national, is greater than personal feeling or prejudice.”

The founding editors of the Reflector were brothers Berzelius L. Strother and Sidonia K. Strother. In June 1885, S.K. Strother left to join the Kansas City Times. Henry Litts took over his half of ownership and assumed full editorial responsibilities in March 1887 when B.L. Strother retired from the newspaper for health reasons.

On February 23, 1888, the Reflector was purchased by the Reflector Publishing Company consisting of John J. Cooper as president and Richard Waring as business manager. With them, the Reflector began a new Republican Party affiliation. Henry Litts left the paper “regretful because it will reflect Republican and not Democratic doctrine.” The new proprietors cited “the universal demand of republicans in this section of the state for a Republican newspaper at Abilene” and began the “anomalous task of converting a Simon-pure democratic paper into a live, progressive republican journal.” Later that same year, the Strother brothers established a Democratic newspaper in Abilene called the Dickinson County News which claimed to have “a larger circulation than any other weekly in the county.” In fact, the two papers were evenly matched. In 1890, the Republican Reflector circulated only 25 more copies than the Democratic News; in 1893, the News circulated 87 more issues than its rival.

The Reflector had also appeared in a daily edition, the Evening Reflector, beginning May 9, 1887. Within a few months of the purchase of the paper in 1888, both editions changed title: the weekly Abilene Reflector became the Abilene Weekly Reflector beginning on May 3, and the daily Evening Reflector became the Abilene Daily Reflector beginning on May 2. The daily edition absorbed the weekly edition in 1935 and then in 1942 merged with the Abilene Daily Chronicle to become the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle, which continues today.

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Search the White Cloud Kansas Chief newspaper and related titles from 1857-1918 on Chronicling America.

The White Cloud Kansas Chief (1857-72) and its successor, The Weekly Kansas Chief (1872-1918), were made notable by their founder and editor, Sol (Solomon) Miller, a pioneer of Kansas newspaper publishing. Founded in a time when most newspapers lasted a few years at most, Miller published the Chief for nearly forty years. Shortly after arriving in White Cloud, Kansas Territory, Miller issued the first edition of the White Cloud Kansas Chief on June 4, 1857. The four-page newspaper was published every Thursday. Doniphan County, located in the northeastern corner of the state, was no stranger to the controversy over slavery then engulfing the nation. The Chief's Free-State Republican stance was clearly stated in its simple motto, “The Constitution and the Union.”

Miller was the epitome of the frontier editor--outspoken, sometimes humorous, and often vitriolic. The first newspaper in Doniphan County was proslavery and Democratic--the Kansas Constitutionalist, edited by Thomas J. Key. On September 10, 1857, Miller culminated an editorial exchange with Key: “We did not exactly tell the truth about him. We said his name was Thomas Jefferson Key. We beg Thomas Jefferson’s pardon—it should have been Thomas Jack-ass Key! (No insult intended to jack-asses generally.)….Thomas J. Key occupies a position which makes him public property—or rather, a public nuisance—and we intend to take a long pole, with a hook and spike in one end of it, and haul him about and turn him over and hold up his rotten filthy carcass to the gaze of the public, until it makes all decent men gag and turn in disgust!” Rival newspaper editors and politicians of any party were often the target of Miller’s abuse. Miller himself served several terms in the Kansas State Senate and one in the Kansas House, although later he made light of his legislative accomplishments.

Looking back on the development of the White Cloud Kansas Chief, Miller wrote, “In those times, Kansas was full of aspiring towns, each destined to become a metropolis, and every town, at the very start, must have a newspaper….We have been told that had we located in some large city or political center, the Chief might have become some great paper. They forget that when we came to Kansas, every town expected to become a mighty city.” To promote interest in White Cloud, Miller would frequently distribute copies of the Chief, locally and nationally, free of charge.

In 1872, Miller moved the White Cloud Kansas Chief to Troy, the seat and commercial center of Doniphan County, seeking greater support and advertisements. He changed the paper’s name to The Weekly Kansas Chief. The four-page newspaper appeared every Thursday; beginning in June 1880, its motto read, “Talk for Home, Fight for Home, Patronize Home.” In 1875, the The Weekly Kansas Chief absorbed the Doniphan County Republican”, which had been established in 1868. Miller died in 1897. In 1918, The Weekly Kansas Chief was succeeded by the Kansas Chief, which remains an active newspaper.

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