Newspapers of Elk's Twin Sister

[W. Gray]

Much history of Elk and Chautauqua counties is intertwined because of the previous existence of Howard County.


From the April 2008, Gen-Tree, Newsletter of the Chautauqua County Historical and Genealogical Society

The Earliest Chautauqua County Newspapers
By Waldo E. Gray

The August 1941 Kansas Historical Quarterly, published by the Kansas State Historical Society, includes a study of early Kansas newspapers. The study concludes, "The Howard County Messenger of Boston no doubt was the first newspaper published in territory now included in Chautauqua County." That newspaper began publishing at Boston in August 1873. However, within the Society's listings of county newspapers, the Boston newspaper comes under Elk County.

The Howard County Messenger (one copy, an extra, exists) exact location in Boston is unknown. It is known the newspaper was on the second floor above the Thompson general store on Main Street. It could have been in either county depending on whether the general store was on the north or south side of the street.

After division of Howard County, the new county line running down Boston's Main Street (now Valley Road) split the town with the north eighty acres in Elk County and the south eighty in Chautauqua County. The town disappeared in 1879 when the post office moved to Moline. Within the Society's listings of post offices, the Boston post office is under Chautauqua County.

The Boston newspaper was the former Howard City Messenger. After the newspaper folded, the press found its way back to Howard City printing the Howard City Beacon.

Not mentioned in the study was the Howard County Record (Peru). The Longton Weekly Ledger, May 23, 1872, reported the Record began publishing May 2 that year. This was more than a year earlier than the Boston newspaper and a year after citizens voted Peru as county seat.

The Record was the fourth newspaper to begin publication in the former Howard County making it the first in Chautauqua County. No copies exist. The 1941 study indicates the author says he knew the Ledger newspapers in Elk County once existed but says copies were not in the Society's historical files. They are today.

Joseph Mount, a deaf mute, published the Record from his Peru home. In September 1872, a tornado destroyed Mount's home/newspaper office and the town school. He and his assistant, a woman he identified as his sister, were lucky to survive. The high wind put the Record out of business for two months.

Besides a tornado, the newspaper had other problems. Area newspapers and Thomas E. Thompson, former Boston resident and Howard Courant publisher for more than half a century, noted Mount put out a weird product making it one of the strangest newspapers in Kansas. The Longton Weekly Ledger commented Mount's initial issue was so badly printed it was barely legible. In the fall of 1872, the Ledger accused him of being a "champion writer of obscenity."

Two years after start, the June 20, 1874, issue claims only thirteen paying subscribers, and states the newspaper would cease printing the following week but would start up again in an unnamed place. The last issue of the Record appears to have been a July 4, 1874, extra edition. This information is in the Howard County Ledger (Elk Falls) July 2, 1874.

The publisher and his assistant bid goodbye to Peru and, using a team, dragged their house and equipment seven miles along section roads to Sedan. They repositioned the home away from most everyone by locating at the northwest corner of Chautauqua and Laurel streets. Mount renamed his newspaper The Wide Awake. Townspeople directed those inquiring of the newspaper location to follow "the main path leading south and you can't miss it."

In Kansas, the Wide Awakes was a political organization with statewide Republican membership. The Wide Awake advertised it was "Independent in Politics" but Thomas E. Thompson said it was Republican. It would last about sixteen months in its new home. One copy, volume I, number 49, July 10, 1875, exists. Based on that number, the Wide Awake started publishing August 7, 1874.

Again, many described the renamed newspaper as strange. Mr. Mount specialized in a crude form of illustration. At a time when publishers could not use photos in newspaper work, he used inked woodcut illustrations to provide some visual variety but continually presented the same pictures each week.

The Sedan Graphic, January 6, 1886, describes the woodcuts as "blood curdling" and may have hastened the newspaper's demise. The Wide Awake abruptly ceased operation in fall 1875. The Elk County Ledger (Elk Falls), October 28, 1875, announced, "Bro. Mount's brilliant luminary, The Wide Awake, has been ignominiously snuffed out."

Mr. Mount and his sister hastily left one evening with their traveling bag and without taking care of their debts. Sedan townspeople never heard from them again. Creditors claimed the printing press moving it back to Peru the following year to print the Chautauqua News. The News lasted four years.

In July 1873, the Independence Republican moved to Howard County becoming the Elk Falls Journal. In January 1874, Richard S. Turner and Henry B. Kelly of Howard City moved to Elk Falls taking over the Journal. Six months earlier, they sold the Howard City Messenger to Boston interests.

Turner and Kelly moved the Journal to Sedan following the formation of Chautauqua County in mid 1875. With The Wide Awake, Sedan was for a few months a two-newspaper town.

According to the Sedan Graphic, the first Journal issued in Chautauqua County came on August 7, 1875, showing Sedan as the city of publication on the front page but having Elk Falls as the newspaper home of record on the inside pages. The publishers also did not have enough large capital "U" typeset letters requiring the newspaper masthead introduction in Sedan as the CHAUTAUQ'A JOURNAL. Copies of the first eight months in Sedan have been lost. The Chautauqua Journal closed shop in 1884.

Also not mentioned in the 1941 Society study is the Cedar Vale Weekly News, edited by Dr. C.H. Lewis, starting up around fall 1873. No copies exist. The Boston newspaper printed the Weekly News, which was little more than a rehash of the Howard County Messenger with some Cedar Vale news added. There is a thin reference to this newspaper in the Elk County portion of History of the State of Kansas published by Alfred T. Andreas, but no mention in the Chautauqua County portion.

According to Thomas E. Thompson, Dr. Lewis traveled from Cedar Vale to Boston a couple times each week to oversee printing. As the Messenger had financial problems during its entire stay in Boston, the Cedar Vale Weekly News probably did not last long.

The Progressive Communist introduced near Cedar Vale in January 1875 lasted but one calendar year. All issues exist. The publisher refused to cite Cedar Vale as the town of publication but did admit to mailing it from there. The front page shows the newspaper home as Progressive Community, Kansas.

There were three small-interrelated communist communes established near Cedar Vale in the 1870s, each lasting a short time and each having a differing philosophy as how communism should work. The Cedar Vale communist settlements from beginning to end had the same 1871-1879 lifespan as the town of Boston.

Published by one of the communes, the Progressive Communist was a monthly with a cost of fifty cents a year. It had no official editor supposedly being a community effort. The subscription base included several other communist and socialist pilot projects in Kansas and elsewhere. All eventually failed, but some lasted well into the twentieth century.

An article appearing in the Progressive Communist under the author's name was the view of the writer. Two individuals, William Frey, born in a regimental army camp in Russia, and J. G. Truman, from Wisconsin, contributed most providing their comment on any number of socialist and communist topics. Articles without an author listed were supposed to be the view of the commune. However, according to newspaper policy, no article appeared unless the entire commune approved content.

The Communist printed minimal Howard and Chautauqua County news but did offer comments on the pending Kansas Supreme Court decision concerning the contested division law. The newspaper also editorialized that Boston would make a better county seat than Sedan because the road to Boston was much better. Presumably, the writer was thinking of Boston's south eighty acres as eligible for county seat. The newspaper also did not report Cedar Vale area news. The main effort was promotion of communism.

In July 1875, another monthly communist newspaper, the Social Investigator, originated from another of the communes. This publication did cite Cedar Vale as home of record and was inserted inside the Progressive Communist. The intent was to provide a different view of how communism should work. It lasted only a couple issues.

According to Kansas in Newspapers published by the Kansas State Historical Society in 1963, Kansas had 4,368 newspapers over a specified period through 1936, the most for any state and an overall average of 42 per county. From the former Howard County, including merger and renaming, Elk County has had around 75 newspapers introduced while Chautauqua County has had around 51.